“It’s so damn high, hanging way above the Saint Lawrence. Christ, it’s narrow too. For a second you almost think it’s taking you to the on-ramp of the highway to heaven or something.” She chuckled to herself. “Except on the other side there’s no angel waiting for you. Not even Michael Landon, that hunk. All you’ll find in Massena is a boring mall and a JC Penney with some bargain-hunting Canadians milling about. God, the rust’s just eating away at the whole damn place.”
***
After Sheila drove off, Leclair had three cups of coffee in rapid succession. He filled the bottom third of his paper cup with sugar, followed by two thirds with coffee. No creamer. When the cup was nearly empty, he used his fingers to make sure none of the undissolved sugar at the bottom went to waste. Solomon didn’t realize that he had been glaring at him with a combination of disgust and disapproval until Leclair looked up from his cup. “What’s it to you, eh?”
They drove out to a wooded area in complete silence. It would have been a thoroughly uncomfortable silence had Solomon not felt so exhausted. He was mentally worn out. Just as he thought he would somehow bring himself to speak, he realized that forming a coherent sentence took far too much effort. He put his hand on the urn that bounced around between the two seats. He realized the biggest problem: a space dominated by absence, devoid of human words, could be sacred, so long as it was filled with unspoken content. But with his eyes glazing over as they settled on the endless white outside — the frozen ground, the milky sky — his mind sank in a blank, thoughtless sea.
It was simply impossible to keep up with Leclair. He was a man on a mission, hell-bent, with a fire in his belly as he pushed branches out of his way and trudged through the forest. Solomon, struggling to keep up with the pace, was too out of breath to talk.
The brisk pace of this forced hike woke him up.
“We are going to have a hell of a time with the soil — it’s still frozen.” Solomon paused, waiting for a response from Leclair, but none was forthcoming. He didn’t even look back.
Solomon stopped, standing still on a stump that peeked out from the snow.
“Are you certain that we’re going the right way? I don’t see how you can know. It’s all the same everywhere you look. An endless winter maze.” A branch, like a gnarly, arthritic finger poking, jabbing at his body, got caught in his coat, and Solomon felt his irritation rise.
This time Leclair stopped. He looked back with a determined expression but did not respond. A moment later, he continued walking and picked up his pace.
It must have been around minus five outside, but Solomon was perspiring under his heavy pea coat. The back of his shirt was damp. He hated the sensation.
After another ten minutes or so, the two arrived at a small nondescript clearing in the middle of the woods. Solomon couldn’t see anything that set it apart from the monotonous scenery that surrounded them.
“This is it?” At first, Solomon sounded surprised. It quickly transformed into sarcasm. “So then this is that plot of land that you recall so fondly from your youth? That hallowed land from the good old days?”
Leclair, turned the other way, did not answer.
“Mr. Leclair, please will you respond? I have come out all this way with you, blown my monthly discretionary budget on that motel and put up with you and your every whim for nearly twenty-four hours. Do you think that maybe I have earned a response from you?” Solomon’s face turned red and he wanted nothing more than to take a nice heavy branch and knock Leclair over the back of his head.
Leclair turned around slowly, with the urn in his hands. His hell-bent determination seemed to have given way to a quiet gloom. He was almost inaudible.
“Start digging ... please.”
Solomon let out a sigh of exasperation before pushing his shovel through the snow and into the ground. Leclair fell to his knees and started frantically scraping away snow with his hands. Solomon realized that Leclair was becoming increasingly troubled. During the novitiate, he never learned what to do in situations like this, and even a decade of experience in pastoral ministry had not really prepared him. Father Solomon knew the liturgy better than most and could follow the script in front of him to the letter. For the most part, he took comfort knowing that even meeting with mourning families was a scripted process in most cases. With few exceptions, he knew what was expected of him, and the grieving loved ones knew what they could expect from their priest. This time, he had strayed far off the path and had nothing to guide him. He didn’t really know if he did it for Leclair or for himself, but he quietly recited a verse as he tried to press the shovel into the frozen ground.
“There are many rooms in my Father’s house; if there were not, I should have told you. I am going now to prepare a place for you, and after I have gone and prepared you a place, I shall return to take you with me; so that where I am you may be too…”
Solomon’s voice trailed off as he realized how little progress he was making, despite his best efforts. The shovel barely scraped two or three inches of earth from the surface.
Leclair sat back on the snow next to the exposed dirt and seemed to be contemplating something.
“Did you say that for me too?” He made eye contact with Solomon briefly.
“It applies to each and every one of us.” Solomon sounded brusque as he focused on making the hole big enough to at least reach the top of the urn. Thankfully, it was a small unadorned rectangular box. He had some way to go, but the task no longer seemed unfeasible. He pushed the shovel into the ground and put all his weight on the handle. He could see Leclair from the corner of his eye, sitting quietly and looking away towards the trees.
“Let us find shelter and solace in Your compassion as we return the ashes of our sister to the earth. Grant her a place of peace where the world of dust and ashes has no dominion.”
Leclair was staring intently at the urn. The grave was now deep enough to at least cover it, though admittedly it would rest a mere inch or so below the surface of the forest. Solomon picked up the urn and handed it to Leclair, motioning for him to place it in the grave. Leclair got on his knees and placed the urn into the ground with what appeared to be exaggerated care, as though he were handling delicate porcelain.
“Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord...” Father Solomon paused and waited a moment for Leclair to say the scripted response. When he remained silent and withdrawn, Father Solomon concluded. “And let perpetual light shine upon her.”
Leclair got up and walked a few feet away from the grave. Suddenly, he turned to Solomon and spoke with a blank expression and monotone voice.
“And upon me as well.” Leclair produced a pocket knife, swallowed hard, and a look of alarm, combined with a streak of determination, settled on his face. Solomon was momentarily startled, but some instinctive force made him take a few steps towards Leclair.
“What are you doing?” Solomon moved closer to Leclair who remained frozen, now with an expression of impending doom. “Joseph?”
Leclair had slunk away into a different world and his body was as inanimate as a plaster statue. Solomon moved closer to him, slowly, without sudden motions. Leclair seemed to be staring right beyond him, or through him, but it wasn’t at all clear what had him so fixated. The knife was firmly in his grip by his left side. His white knuckles protruded from his hand, as his grip formed an uncompromising fist around the knife.
It seemed impossible at this point to take it from him easily. So without the careful forethought that normally brought Solomon comfort, he instinctively came up close to Leclair from the left, and with one sudden and deliberate swoop, he used all his force to give Leclair a vigorous shove. First surprise, then red rage, settled on Leclair’s face as he stumbled and tried to regain his balance. Before he could react, Solomon gave him one final shove. As he stumbled and fell, Solomon reached for the knife. At first, he noticed nothing but warm liquid melting his frostbitten hands. The dizzying pain, laced with terror, came moments later when Solomon noticed that he had all bu
t skewered his hand with the knife that remained firmly in Leclair’s grasp.
Letting out a primal roar, Leclair kicked Solomon in the chin. The priest fell on his back and lay there as blood pooled next to his hand in the snow. Disoriented, he no longer knew who he was — or why he was. His eyes were fixed on the milky sky above, and he felt as though his spirit had passed into that murky no man’s land between wakefulness and sleep.
In his daze, through the corner of his eye, he noticed that strange figure in burgundy plaid pacing nearby. It came into clearer focus as it hovered above him. Solomon groaned. He became conscious of Leclair muttering as he wrapped what appeared to be his scarf around Solomon’s bleeding hand and tightened it.
“Shit!” Leclair took off his toque and ran his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t want that to happen to you.” He got up, walked over to a tree and rammed the knife into the bark. Solomon slowly sat up and looked at his hand. Blood stained the fabric of the grey scarf. Leclair turned around and, within a moment, loomed over Solomon.
“You’ve done your part. Now let me finish what needs to be finished, for fuck’s sake!”
Silence filled the clearing in the forest for several drawn-out moments, before Solomon cleared his throat and answered.
“It’s already done. This heavy burden is no longer yours alone to bear.”
Leclair smirked, shook his head and then scoffed.
“It’s done when I don’t have to feel anymore ... when it’s silent and dark and when that chorus finishes its song.” He kicked some snow towards the shallow grave and cursed the priest. Solomon could see him retreat to the furthest corner of the clearing and squat down, facing the forest. He let his head hang as he exhaled and spoke, perhaps more to himself than to the priest.
“I fell asleep once, as a kid, in an area just like this. I’m thinking it was around early spring and the last real snowfall cooled me as I just lay there. The skin on my face was on fire something godawful. Swollen, red, throbbing and all. Every flake of snow slowly put out that fire and I just floated away. But I swear I could hear faint steps in the snow coming up towards me. I hadn’t gone crazy or anything. These were real fuckin’ steps. True, they were soft and all, but real. Careful, distant, getting closer. And then warm moisture on my face. It tickled a little, but in a real good way. It was soft and warm, like a kiss. I thought it was a girl and then I lay there telling myself, hey, I don’t mind that one bit now, keep it comin’.” Leclair paused and glanced back at Solomon. “Oh, right, you wouldn’t know, eh?”
Solomon grinned.
“But that warm, sweet girl kissing me in the snow had some pretty godawful breath and a beard too! I opened my eyes and saw a scruffy dog — beady black eyes and a cool, moist nostril an inch away from my face. He disappeared back into the woods by the time I sat up. But I swear I had more energy and strength than ever before.”
“You came face to face with the Divine.” The words just tumbled out without Solomon really thinking them through. Leclair raised an eyebrow and gave the priest a good, long, incredulous glare.
“I’m talking about a fuckin’ dog, Father. Are you going all goofball on me?”
Solomon nodded his head in a way that indicated he both acknowledged and didn’t that Leclair had a valid point. “I think what I am saying, perhaps not very well, is that you entered the Kingdom of God, in a sense, simply by recognizing the face of the Creator in creation. In some small and maybe inexplicable way, every creature on earth reveals to you His many faces. You know, even in a life filled mostly with doubt, I can’t seem to expel Saint Patrick’s words from my head. It’s where he speaks about Christ being within us, behind us, before us, beside us, beneath us and above us — here, everywhere to comfort us. The only way I can make any sense of that is by seeing a sliver of the Divine in every creature.”
“Right.” Leclair’s response hovered somewhere between dismissive and reflective. “Well, I’m not sure what’s hocus-pocus and what’s not.”
“It was you who came to see me, not the other way around. Look, this is the kingdom, right here. It’s being built here and now, every day and by everyone. That’s not some Houdini trick, Joseph.”
Leclair nodded, somewhat dismissively. His voice had become barely audible. “Well, I’m not doing much building...”
Solomon felt completely drained; he couldn’t manage any more comforting. He was convinced that he could no longer muster the energy to string together another sentence. So without getting up and without speaking, he cleared his throat, pointed to the knife and stretched out his good hand, palm up. Leclair hesitated and spent what felt like an eternity staring at the knife before extracting it from the bark of the tree, walking over to Solomon and dropping it into the snow.
Leclair faced away. “You can go now...”
Solomon looked confused, though Leclair didn’t turn around to see it.
“Here, take these too...” Without facing Solomon, he tossed a set of keys towards the priest.
“What are you doing?” Solomon sounded exasperated. He was so worn out that he felt on the verge of tears.
“You said this is the kingdom. So why don’t you let me enjoy it in peace...” Bitterness and defeat coloured Leclair’s voice.
Solomon did not move.
“Look, I appreciate you coming out here and all, and thanks for last night at the motel. But get lost, eh?”
“You seriously expect me to just leave you out here?” Solomon was incredulous.
Leclair walked up close to the priest with a threatening air. Solomon still sat in the same spot, looking pathetic and small.
“What other choice do you have?” He paused, before making the sign of the cross in front of Solomon.
“There. I’ve absolved you, Father. Now go. There’s a quarter tank of gas left in the truck.”
***
Holding the steering wheel with one hand proved more cumbersome than Solomon thought it would. But he coped. When he got back to the rectory that afternoon, he decided against lying down on his bed, even though during the seemingly endless drive, his ascetic little room beckoned like some lush oasis. No, he couldn’t lie down. The mop and bucket next to the confessional lured him into the type of mundane work that promised to dull his senses — like some taboo drug. He just didn’t care. Or more properly put, he just couldn’t afford to care. More properly still, he aspired to indifference.
The light filtering through the stained glass cast circular and octagonal pools of green, yellow, blue and purple on the stone floor. Solomon caught himself rubbing the mop with absent-minded vigour, trying in vain to erase the coloured light, before he realized what he was doing. He felt silly. Enough of this. As he lifted the bucket of grey water and poured it into the toilet, careful not to splash the sides, he didn’t hear the high-pitched ring of the phone in his bedroom puncture the stale air and the silence. In its persistence, the pulsating ring, now somehow smoother and less urgent than before, travelled through the walls, out the fogged-up windows, and swirled around the steeple. It ascended nimbly towards a sea of milky clouds that craved nothing more than to finally part before the presence of that dilly-dallier of a spring.
David and Franco
David really didn't want to be seen like this. Bathing naked in the Ottawa River — shampoo in his hair and a scrawny lily-white body glistening in the morning sun — was not a good look for him. And despite the self-satisfying pretense that society here was a liberal, open-minded and inclusive beacon for the world, David had the book knowledge to understand that by European standards, people were more prudish than they cared to admit, particularly when it came to nude bodies.
David rubbed his socks against a bar of soap, mindful not to let his underwear float away or sink to the murky bottom of the river. He worried that if he didn’t hurry up, one of the colourless, profoundly law-abiding civil servants on their way to work would scold him for mistaking the Outaouais for the Ganges. David didn’t feel purified, but at least the gru
bbiness of a humid night, where his clammy skin touched the canvas of his tent, had been washed away.
There was something almost fraudulent about David’s makeshift campsite and his river bath. In his mind, he saw himself as Chris from Into the Wild, courageously fleeing urban civilization and the comforts of modernity to live a simple life, retreating ever further into the wilderness. The problem was that David’s home in the wild was an illusion. Not too far away and well within his line of vision, grey concrete high-rises from the 1970s towered uncomfortably in the hot, hazy air. The narrow beach and clearing that served as his home was separated from the busy Macdonald Parkway by a strip of forest little wider than a suburban backyard. Barely a hundred metres to the north lay a public beach, complete with a bar that tried too hard to seem exotic and with wannabe hippies who showed up at night in groups — guitars, dreadlocks and pot.
The little battery-operated radio sitting outside David’s tent was a veritable beast in disguise. The sound quality may have been tinny, but it was loud enough to drown out the morning rush-hour traffic on the parkway.
“Do you have an embarrassing and uncomfortable fungal infection in one or more of your toenails? Are your toenails discoloured, deformed or crumbling away at the tip? Is shame forcing you to cover up, when you’d like nothing more than to wear sandals or flip-flops? Thanks to groundbreaking technology developed by Moor & Shum International, we can give your toenails a new lease on life. Call us for a hassle-free consultation with Dr. Vera Moor or Head Nurse Emmet Shum. We’ll get your toes back on track!"
David inspected his toes with some satisfaction before laying his freshly rinsed socks out on a rock to dry. He hunted for an extra pair in his backpack. The clinic’s toll-free number was pre-empted a little too early by the morning show’s host. On air, Bob came across as your typical middle-class suburban Canadian dad: folksy, moderately conservative, charmingly uncomplicated and probably a master at barbecues.
“It’s gonna be a real scorcher again today, folks! Thirty degrees, thirty-eight with the humidex and you’re listening to CCRB 600, family-friendly talk radio for the nation’s capital. Telling it like it is. The hard-working, Canadian taxpayer’s source for no-nonsense analysis on what’s going on in this, well, pretty messed-up world of ours. And to help sort things out for you, here’s our very own frank-talking Franco Ritchie. So, what do you have for us today?”
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