All Those Drawn to Me

by Christian Petersen

  Staggered to the bathroom, my jeans like a dog’s tail dragging, and there I puked. Lay on the bathroom floor for about three hours, my face pressed against the cool pedestal of the toilet, propped against my stubborn erection, and my ghostly conscience standing over me wagging his finger, telling me I’m a foolish, pitiful, middle-aged piece of shit.

  Finally got my boots off. Took a shower. With water streaming all over me, I turned off the hot, forced myself to stand there till my scalp was tingling from the cold and my cock tamed right down.

  Then I cleaned up the whole house. Collected beer cans and the remains of a mindless sandwich binge, put away all the old country records I’d pulled out, stripped the sheets off the bed, tore up the dirty magazine, even vacuumed the carpet. Tried to imagine what different people would have to say about my behaviour last night, waltzing around with the straw broom to old Hank’s tunes, etcetera: my wife for instance, or my mother. Or my daughter, my sister, my son, our local minister, my sister-in-law, my boss. No way could I defend myself.

  Found my smelly shirt on the floor in the kitchen. Disgusted, I opened the veranda door, to toss it out to air. Then felt something in the shirt pocket. And I pulled out a folded beer coaster, with that old man’s map scrawled in pencil on the back.

  Night before I’d got home to an empty house, with instructions on the counter: Hon, don’t forget to feed the cat, two scoops, radishes could use thinning and are good for you, raw, three meals in the freezer, tuna casserole in fridge, microwave 4½ min. See you Thursday, love Peggy.

  Got a beer out of the fridge and sat myself down on the couch, with my workboots still on. The kids had just finished their school year, and my wife had taken them south for a bit of a holiday, to visit her mom and stepdad in the city. I’d opted out, claiming I couldn’t get the time off work, which was almost true.

  House felt weird, being so quiet.

  Turned on the TV, flicked through the channels, watched a few of those music videos that my kids are addicted to — with the half-naked girls leaping around. Finished off the first beer and got a second. My wife’s instructions lay there in plain sight on the counter. I was hungry. But it seemed like a lot of trouble to haul that casserole out of the fridge and stick it in the microwave.

  No one was stopping me for a change, so I had another quick beer. After that I was convinced I deserved a cheeseburger and fries at the neighbourhood pub. Changed into a clean shirt and my snakeskin boots, combed my hair and away I went.

  There was a new waitress there. She had a husky voice, red hair, wore a short, tight skirt, had her shirt undone three buttons. She brought me my burger and beer, and seemed so friendly and eager to please that it sort of jolted my ego. One thing led to another, that’s pretty much how the whole night went. Doesn’t happen as often as it used to, but whenever I start getting an erection at the wrong time, say in church or at the grocery store, I try hard to think of those films about Eskimos they showed us in school, and I pretend I’m riding a dogsled or a raft of Arctic ice in my birthday suit at about seventy below zero. This is not a guaranteed cure, but before I stood up to leave the pub it had been about half successful.

  That waitress put me in mind of the untamed days, before I was married. So when I leave the pub it seems natural to drive across town to the old hotel bar, where I have not visited for a long time. Locals are all excited, kicking off the weekend, same as ever. But the bar itself has been renovated. There’s a new CD jukebox flashing like a UFO, beer label mirrors, Budweiser blonds, tubular lights all over the place, TVs in three corners all showing different ball games, plus a larger screen playing more music videos. And young kids in there! Girls and boys.

  I move sideways through the crowd, toward the darkest corner. A little table tucked away behind the cigarette machine. Buy my first pack of smokes in a year, for no explainable reason, and reach for that empty seat.

  Only then do I see the old man in the second chair, sitting in the shadow of the corner, with his head down on the table between us. Doesn’t seem like he’ll mind, so I join him.

  Waitress brings me my mug. Uh oh. This one’s pretty too. And there’s a little tear in the butt of her tight faded Levi’s, showing black lace panties. Avert my eyes as soon as I can. Drink my beer, looking around the bar. Guys are shooting pool, one or two that I recognize, but none that I’d cross the room to bullshit with. Then all those kids, laughing their heads off. A few tourists also, including a nervous Japanese couple who seem to be wondering where the hell they’ve ended up. I sympathize. Wonder Waitress makes her rounds. Evening sunlight cuts the smoky air as newcomers enter the pub, more good old boys, and just as their eyes adjust to the inside light — zing — the waitress is there to stun them with her smile. She sells me another beer, and I tip her a whole dollar just to get a glimpse of those pearly teeth. In the far corner two kids shriek and wrench the computer game joystick. TVs and videos flash, noise keeps rising. A man could drown in it all.

  Meanwhile, the old guy’s snoring, so he’s deaf I guess.

  I’ve had enough to drink that I’m in a thinking mood, a bit philosophical. I’m no fanatic or anything, don’t get me wrong. But the thought occurs to me that, in the course of my forty-two years on the planet, ordinary life has changed into something. …

  Suddenly the old man sits straight up in his chair and declares, “Man, you’re damn right!”

  My mug stops in mid-air, and I stare at him.

  He stares back, eyes alert. So, have I been thinking out loud, or has this drunken codger read my mind?

  “I’m far from deaf,” he replies, winking at me, “and I’ll have you know I’m not drunk neither, not drunk enough by a long shot.”

  I buy him a beer.

  After the waitress leaves he glances around, leans over the table toward me and states in a low voice, “I used to be a communist.”

  Then he sat back in his chair, giving me time to ponder what he’d said, and he sipped his draft. I didn’t know what to think. Down the middle of his scalp was a sparse strip of hair, over the years the rest of it must’ve crept down into his eyebrows, which were bushy and wild, looked like big grey woolly moths clinging to the ridge of his face. Scars were notched on his nose and chin. Hadn’t shaved for a few days. This man had seen spells of trouble in his life, and maybe they had taken him over. Yet he reminded me of a person I couldn’t place, somewhere hidden in my memory, perhaps a relative I hadn’t seen since childhood. He was grateful for the beer I bought him. Fixed those strangely familiar eyes on me, and picked up the conversation. “I was a card-carrying member of the People’s Party, and do you know why?”

  Don’t have a clue, I thought. Before I could say so —

  “Because they served soup and bread in their hall in Vancouver during the Depression, and that’s what I lived on, son!” Our mugs jumped and sloshed a little when he banged the table with his fist.

  “Worked for the CPR cleaning toilets for twenty-three years. They passed me over for promotion to management, time and time again, and do you know why?”

  Shook my head.

  He scowled at me, banged the table. “Are you thick between the ears or what? I got passed over ’cause I’d been a communist!!” The old guy sat back, took a big gulp of beer. Then leaned forward again and stuck out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Blake, my name’s Walt.”

  I shook his hand. But he was starting to make me nervous. I couldn’t keep one damn thought to myself. When I tried to make my mind go silent, he heard me fail, and grinned all the harder at my puzzlement. And he kept talking, telling me about his life. Filled me in on the homestead years, recapped the Depression, his frustrating career with the railroad, various other occupations, and then he got started on women, all the ups and downs of his sex life. Imagine an old barfly with the abilities to read your mind, and to talk circles around the average butter-mouthed politician. Just trying to follow him made me thirsty. We had more beer.

  I’ve never been much of a conversationa
list, but Walt’s talent made it easy on me. He’d react to my thoughts faster than I could speak them, for the most part.

  Eventually, the talk got around to fishing. To different lakes and rivers in this area, and a few of our finer catches. Didn’t look to me like Walt had done much fishing lately, but he knew of every spot I did, from earlier years, plus a few I didn’t. That’s when he told me about the little green lake full of nine-pound trout.

  Of course, he heard me thinking I didn’t believe that for a goddamn second. “Well, Blake,” he grinned, that partial set of yellow horse teeth bared, “you been buyin’ the beers. And I don’t like owing nobody. …” He rooted around in his pockets until he came up with a stubby pencil. Then he took one of those Budweiser coasters, flipped it over and started drawing me a map. This occupied Walt for a few minutes, and his talk proceeded between pauses, while he drew in details such as cattle guards and mudholes.

  I turned to look around the bar again, and the evening’s noise almost made me dizzy. Couldn’t believe it when the waitress came around singing last call. We had one last round.

  When he’d finished his map, Walt slid the coaster across the table. Reminding me of someone I couldn’t name, his eyes looked right at me. Solemnly he said, “Don’t lose this, and don’t show nobody else.”

  I smile. He knows well enough that I don’t believe in those nine-pound trout, or even his secret green lake. But I tuck the map in my shirt pocket. Soon after, the lights come on. We stand, squint and stagger outside with the rest of the crowd.

  A few steps down the sidewalk, I turn to ask Walt where he lives, can I give him a lift home. But he isn’t there. I check the bar, thinking maybe he’s got detained, but I can’t find him. He is gone.

  Driving my Suburban along the back streets, with a sharp eye out for cops, those untamed lustful feelings once more get hold of me. I imagine being with either one of those waitresses, then both at the same time. I drive past the Trading Post Convenience Store (open 24 hours), and circle the block. Then, like I do about once every two years, I park, sneak into the store and buy a Penthouse magazine from a pimply-faced kid about the same age as my oldest son. Like a real sinner I go home and tie into the bottle of Scotch left over from Christmas, end up dancing with the broom and doing other things I won’t mention.

  Found myself sitting there ashamed next afternoon, looking at that crinkled beer coaster.

  Like a little round book the map opened between my shaky fingers, and gradually my attention was drawn into the web of those lines. I hadn’t been fishing yet this year. Not being as fanatical about it as some guys. I expected the nine-pound lake was not much different than any old drunk’s secret, the secret they tell anyone for the price of a few beers. But going fishing suddenly struck me as a harmless way to spend what was left of the day. That is, it seemed like more responsible behaviour than lusting after young females and killing another batch of brain cells.

  So I went to the garage, rooted around, dug out my rod and tackle and canvas packsack. The weedy-water smell of it convinced me.

  Hauled this gear out to my Suburban, which was parked cockeyed in the driveway. After much effort, given my hangover, I got the canoe on top and tied down. On the way out of town I stopped by the Trading Post, bought a submarine sandwich and filled my thermos with coffee.

  Once headed north on the 97, with afternoon sun stretching over hillsides and horses grazing in stony pastures, Randy Travis on the radio, I started to feel like at least a halfways normal if not decent man again.

  About twenty miles up the highway I found the west turnoff marked on Walt’s map. I must’ve driven past it a hundred times before, and never really noticed or wondered where it led. Now I was going to find out. The afternoon became more pleasant as I got farther from the highway, following the old forestry road, one that hadn’t seen much use in years. Former logging tracks snaked off here and there, offering me glimpses into the shadowy woods. Walt had sketched a few of these secondary tracks onto his map, not all that accurately, it appeared, but I drove on looking for the blue shale outcropping where I was supposed to make a turn, eventually coming to this landmark and a trail overgrown with leafy alder. Branches brushed the truck. Most of the time I could not see more than twenty yards ahead. Came to a creek without a bridge, and forded it with caution, not wanting to douse the engine.

  Now the track was winding and washed out. Followed it for another few miles. Maybe more. I’d forgot to check the odometer, and back in the woods distance is sometimes hard to judge. All at once, though, the woods thinned out. What was left of the track disappeared into shiny swamp grass. The ground might be soft underneath, I thought, and I don’t want to get stuck out here. So I killed the engine and sat still with my arms crossed over the steering wheel, my eyes gazing ahead. There was a fringe of wild meadow, and beyond this, the lake.

  Until that moment this little adventure had only seemed something to do, a bit of a trick to keep myself safe and sober. But while looking over the water, my pulse rose. The colour stunned me. It was hard to tell just where the grassy shore ended, for the lake was amazingly green in itself, bright as the head of a mallard drake. What if the old man’s story was true? Could there be nine-pound trout out there? Poured myself a half-cup of coffee, and just sat still another few minutes, enjoying the possibility, the peaceful view.

  Going fishing always makes me feel like a kid again, as if I had nothing else to worry about, or fear. I untied the canoe, carried it on one shoulder to the green shore, and set it quietly in the perfectly clear water. Cool on my hands. When I pushed off, the canoe whispered through the reeds, and with a few pulls of the paddle I was out on the still water.

  A partially cloudy afternoon, white clouds reflected in the water. Off to my left, a family of ducks paddled away. It was not a very large lake. Once I was fifty yards out I could see its outline, longer than it was across, with a couple of small bays off one end, the whole thing shaped a bit like a tadpole, or an amoeba magnified a jillion times. Passing between clouds the sun was still warm, and I knew it was a bit early in the day for good fishing, so, after drifting for a moment, I decided to paddle around the shoreline, which took me longer than I had expected. Little whirlpools curled behind my paddle strokes. I studied the water, the woods. There were no cabins or campsites, or marks left by people that I could see. As well as ducks there were red-wing blackbirds, pipers, loons and one pair of big white pelicans with their large, mounded nest set back in the reeds. It excited me to see the pelicans. I’d seen them once years before, but only from quite a distance, as they are rare in this region. Beavers had lodges in both of the small bays near the lake’s one end, and I saw a muskrat sunning himself on an old wind-fallen pine. Several times on my first trip around I found myself sitting still, with my paddle laid across the canoe gunnels, watching the wildlife, taking deep breaths, smelling the water. In silence. I felt calm, yet highly aware of these new surroundings.

  I tried to read the water, to figure out where the fish might be. The lake was shallow for a fair distance from the shore, for maybe fifty yards out the water was tinged that remarkable green, and in many spots I could see the pale sandy bottom. Beyond that, down the middle of the lake, there appeared to be a deep chasm, and the water was much darker in that unknown depth.

  No fish had risen yet. And there were so few flies about, I hadn’t even had to put any Muskol on. I’d made a few casts, got no action at all. I speculated that it was maybe slim pickings for fish in this lake, and I’d be lucky if they ran to two pounds let alone nine. I was happy enough just being out there though, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if I didn’t catch anything. Then I noticed the insect that had crawled out of the water up the shaft of my paddle. Actually, it was no insect but a freshwater shrimp, and the biggest I’d ever seen. Darn near as big as one from a can.

  While sitting still, watching that shrimp, I heard a sound. It seemed to pass by quite close to me, so that at first I took it to be a bird, although
an unfamiliar one. But I saw nothing, for the moment. And really, when I tried to describe the sound to myself, it had been more of a faint hum than a bird call.

  The shrimp let go of the paddle, dropped its little self into the clear water beside the canoe. And as my eyes followed it under, I saw the fish.

  A trout passed swiftly by, my judgment was blurred by maybe ten feet of water, but it looked like a sizable trout. Then it circled upward, taking the shrimp, rainbow colours flashed, and I saw for sure that it was upwards of twenty inches long. No nine-pounder, mind you, but possibly five or six. Leaving a brief ripple on the surface, it was gone.

  My heartbeat jumped at the sight of that fish. I let the canoe drift, and cast my line out. I waited for that big trout, or a similar-sized one, to take the fly. Carefully, with my fingers, I inched the line in. But no luck. I kept thinking about the rainbow along the side of that beauty I’d seen, the colours were there in my mind. After a time, something else occurred to me: the sound. The sound I’d heard just before seeing that trout, it had come again more clearly for those few moments that I’d had the trout in sight. What’s more, I kept hearing what I’d thought were echoes in my mind, of that high hum. Then I heard it again, as clearly as the first time, and I happened to catch a glimpse of another beauty passing through the water underneath the canoe. It was impossible — but the hum seemed to be their sound. As if the fish were singing.

  Before I knew it, dusk had fallen. Must have fished three hours or so, never got so much as a nibble. I’d lost track of time, and suddenly realized I had a fair drive home ahead of me. Decided I’d come back bright and early the next morning.

  Somewhere along the back roads, on my way out, I took a wrong turn, and the old logging track I was following petered out in a thick stand of young aspen. Turned my Suburban around, after a lost hour finally found my way back to the highway, and home.