by William Bell
Iris slumped into her chair, exhausted. “I got no lunch and no breaks today,” she said, “we were so busy. This is delicious. You two should open a restaurant.”
“We’ll call it the Clear-Cut Café,” Bryan said. Ellen gave him a harsh look.
“Very funny, kid. Don’t you start in on me. I’ve had a hard day and your uncle’s already taken a few shots at me. I felt like breaking his other arm.”
“I, for one, would like to hear about what went on yesterday, Mrs Troupe. Grumpy over there, with his mouth full, wouldn’t tell me a thing.” Bryan had asked Ellen not to tell his mother he had seen her arrested.
“Well, I can tell you that getting arrested isn’t nearly as glamorous as it is on TV. When they dumped us — and ‘dumped’ is the right word for it; those cops weren’t gentle — we were taken back to town and herded into a holding cell. About three dozen of us, I guess, including five or six kids and a few seniors. At the time we arrived the cops were still processing the fifty or so who had been arrested at dawn when they tried to block the trucks from going into the bush.”
“You mean,” Bryan cut in, “that your group was the second?”
“Yup.”
“It’s disgusting,” said Ellen.
“It sure is,” Bryan chimed in.
“They ought to be ashamed of themselves,” Ellen added. “Treating you people like that. As if you were criminals.”
Bryan almost choked on his last mouthful of Noodles James.
“Go on, Mrs Troupe,” Ellen urged.
“Well, there’s not much more to tell. We were charged with contempt of court and asked to sign what the legal beagles call an undertaking that we would appear for our trials — where the hell are we going to go; almost all of us live around here — and that we would not take part in any more road-blocking. About ten people refused to sign, so they were taken into Nanaimo to the minimum-security prison there.”
“Good,” Bryan hissed. Had Ellen forgotten that her father was a big gun in MFI and that her mother got most of her legal business from the company?
“Contempt of court,” Ellen commented. “Doesn’t sound too serious.”
Iris sighed, putting down her fork and pushing her empty plate aside. “Actually, it is. Judges get very touchy when they feel the court’s authority is flouted. Sometimes I think a few of those buggers are a bit too vain about their powers. You can get quite a long sentence for contempt.”
Bryan suddenly felt afraid. “Anyway, it’s all over now for you, right, Mom? You signed, right? Or you wouldn’t be here. They wouldn’t have let you go.”
“Yes and no.”
Bryan groaned. Before he could ask what her enigmatic answer had meant, there was a loud knock on the door.
“I’ll get it,” Ellen said, rising. “I’m closest.”
She pulled open the door, and in stepped two RCMP offcers. Imposing in their blue uniforms, the two men seemed to fill the small kitchen.
“Iris, we need to talk to you,” one said. Bryan recognized him, but didn’t know his name.
Without moving from her chair, Iris said, “Me? What’s it about?”
“There’s been an act of sabotage in the MFI equipment yard,” the second cop announced dramatically. “A truck was fire-bombed.”
“ ‘Sabotage’?” Iris smirked. “What is this, a spy movie?”
“What’s this got to do with Mrs Troupe?” Ellen demanded.
The cops ignored her. “This is Norm’s Bed ’n Breakfast, isn’t it?” the first cop said, hitching up his leather belt.
“You know it is, Nick, for God’s sake,” Iris said. “You live in this town. I see you and your wife in the supermarket once a week. What the hell does all this have to do with me?”
“You don’t seem too upset about the sabotage,” the second cop said. He was a lanky man with a bad sunburn.
“Why should I be?”
Wrong move, Mom, Bryan thought. He was aware that Ellen had come to Iris’s defence but he had not, yet he could not think what to say or do.
Sunburn looked at Nick, who told Iris, “One of your business cards was found near the burned-out truck. You better come with us.”
Iris seemed to lose all her energy at once. “Look, I’ve been through enough,” she said.
At last Bryan found his voice. “You can’t arrest her. She couldn’t have done it. She’s been at work all day and she’s been here since she got off.”
“We’re not arresting you, Iris,” Nick said. “But we’d like you to come down to the detachment and answer a few questions.”
“Wait a minute!” Ellen shouted. “This —”
“You can make this easy, or you can make it hard,” Sunburn snarled, earning a withering glance from his fellow officer.
“Let’s make this simple for everybody concerned, eh?” Nick said quietly.
Iris pulled on her sweater and left the house between the two big men. Bryan stood in the kitchen, his heart beating quickly, his fists opening and closing.
Ellen began to clear the table. “Come on Bry, let’s do the dishes.”
Bryan moved as though his limbs were lead. This was worse than watching her get picked up out at the river, he thought. He had been mad at her then. She had been far away and he had watched everything unfold from the outside. It was different when two threatening men with guns came right into your home and took someone away. Not someone. His own mother. He felt violated, invaded. And if he felt this way, what must be going through his mother’s mind?
“Ellen,” he said, “could you stay for a while?”
Catching him by surprise as he picked up a plate and began to dry it, she kissed him. “Sure, I’ll stay as long as you want.”
They worked in silence, then Ellen cut in on his thoughts. “Are you still mad at her?”
“Wouldn’t you be?” he asked, not meaning it.
“I don’t know. All I’ve ever heard is MFI’s side of things. Dad and Mom — who aren’t exactly objective — say that the industry has changed its practices, that the clear-cuts are smaller now, and they try to be careful so there won’t be big mud slides off the clear-cuts like there used to be. Then they replant the areas. And let’s face it, the forestry is by far the biggest employer around here. Over in Talbot Inlet almost everybody is a logger. If the industry shut down, all those people would lose their livelihood, and Talbot Inlet would be a ghost town.”
“Try and tell Mom and the tree-huggers that,” Bryan said, wishing that, when he argued with his mother, he could line up facts the way Ellen could.
“But the thing is,” Ellen went on as she drained the sink and ran the dishrag over the countertop, “I really admire your mother.”
“You do?”
“It takes a lot of guts to do what she’s doing.”
“Guts? Or … I don’t know, stupid pills or something.”
“That’s not fair, Bry. She’s just doing what she thinks is right.”
Isn’t anybody on my side? Bryan thought. The telephone rang.
It was Ellen’s father, and he didn’t sound too happy. Bryan handed her the phone. She listened for a minute, her forehead creased in a frown, and said “But —” and “Dad, that’s not —” and “Okay. I said okay!”
“I have to go home,” she said as she hung up.
“I figured.”
Alone in the house again, Bryan tried to watch a sitcom, but he couldn’t follow the story line and none of the jokes were funny. He went to his room, clapped his earphones on and turned up the volume on the stereo. Steel Needle’s lyrics and heavy rock failed to calm him. He went back to the TV.
About an hour later, he heard his mother come in. He pushed the Mute button on the remote when she dropped into her favourite easychair and heaved a big sigh. Her hair was wet from the rain and there were dark circles under her eyes.
“I’d love a nice cold beer.”
Bryan brought her a can of beer and a glass. Ignoring the tumbler, Iris took a long drink. Bryan w
atched the silent figures move across the screen.
“They had to let me go,” his mother said finally. “Called Parker, my boss, at his house and asked if I’d been working at the supermarket all day. Then they grilled me. Who would have my business card? Did I know anybody who might burn up a truck? I told them we’re non-violent. None of us believes in that action-movie crap. We’re for passive resistance. We don’t even bad-mouth the cops when they arrest us, let alone destroy property or try to hurt people.
“Then, as I was leaving, Zeke came up to me. Outside the station he told me that the truck that was burned was a worthless relic that’s been up on blocks for over a year. He says the cops figured the fire was symbolic. That’s why they suspected our committee.” She laughed bitterly. “MFI is destroying one of the last stands of primal rainforest in the world and they’re worried about a useless old truck!”
Iris drained her beer. “So, are you glad your mom’s not an eco-terrorist?” She tried to laugh.
Bryan continued to stare at the screen.
“What’s the matter, son?”
Bryan felt a tear form itself in the corner of his eye. “Everything’s changed, Mom. Everything’s gone bad.”
“What do you mean? I thought you were doing fine lately. You got better marks in school than ever. You have a girlfriend. Or is it Jimmy?”
“It seems like everybody’s mad at each other all the time, Mom. You and Jimmy. Me and you. The kids at school. The week before we got out for the summer, there were three fights. All because our parents were lined up on one side or the other on this stupid logging thing. It’s no fun any more, living around here. Everybody’s upset all the time.”
“You want me to quit, don’t you?” Iris said quietly.
“Why does it have to be you, Mom? And why can’t people accept things? We can’t do anything about MFI, even if we want to. And I don’t. Neither does Jimmy.”
Iris leaned back in her chair. The light from the lamp beside her crossed her face, showing the lines of fatigue. “I guess you’re against me, too,” she whispered. “I’ve been so busy, I never really noticed.”
“I’m not against you, Mom. I just wish —”
“That I’d stop.”
“I want things to be the way they used to be,” he almost shouted.
Iris looked at her husband’s picture on the mantel. “So do I,” she said. “Son, life isn’t like that. It isn’t about getting what you want.”
Bryan used the remote to turn off the silent television. He followed her line of sight to the photo of his father and felt a stab of grief, and a stronger stab of pity for his mother.
“Mom,” he began hopefully, “don’t you think you’ve been through enough? You’ve done your bit for the movement or whatever you call it. You got arrested. You got hassled. Nobody can say you haven’t done your part. Now you can let it go and …”
“And what, son?”
“And … and we can go back to the way things were. Jimmy will be home soon.”
“I can’t.”
“Why the hell not?” he shouted, suddenly angry again.
“Don’t take that tone with me. I’m not in the mood.”
“You’re not in the mood? Well, I’m not in the mood to have my life screwed up because my mother is acting like a jerk!”
Iris’s face turned red. “Look, Bryan Norman Troupe, there’s more involved here than your life. Try and look beyond yourself a little.”
“I’m sorry, Mom.” He tried to marshal his thoughts. “It’s just that … ah, the hell with it.”
Iris rose from her chair and padded into the kitchen. She returned with a fresh can of beer. She poured it slowly into her glass.
“Remember how your dad used to brag about how smooth he could pour beer?”
“Yeah. He could get one finger-breadth of foam every time.”
“I want to explain this to you,” she began. “To try to make you understand. Okay?”
You’ll never be able to do that, Bryan thought. But he said, “Yeah.”
“It’s complicated, but it’s simple, too. I mean, the issues and the situations and the propaganda can be confusing, and if you’re not careful, you can get so damn mixed up you lose your way and don’t know what to do. But when I was a little girl my gram gave me an old beat-up book to read. I can’t even remember the title — isn’t that strange? — but I can recall everything else about it. The green cover that was worn through to the cardboard at the corners. The split in the spine. The pages curled up on the edges because they’d been thumbed and turned so many hundreds of times. It had been her book, and she’d had it all her life.
“The book was about a very religious Christian man trying to make his way in a world full of troubles and problems. I won’t tell you the whole story, it’s too long. But I always remember, when he was confused and didn’t know how to act, or what was the right thing to say, he’d ask himself, ‘What would Jesus do?’
“See, he knew Jesus had doubts, too. But Jesus stuck to what he thought was the right thing to do. He was afraid sometimes, but he tried to be brave. And I’ll bet that the people around him, including some of his followers, tried to convince him he was being foolish, getting in trouble with the Sanhedrin and the Romans.”
Iris sat up in her chair, a sad smile playing across her face. “No, son, I’m not saying I’m like Jesus. Nobody is. But he inspires me sometimes. I’m doing this because I’m absolutely, totally certain that it’s right. And if I didn’t fight for what’s right, if I didn’t oppose what’s happening to our land, I couldn’t look at my own face in the mirror. I could never tell you to do what’s right.
“See? That’s what I mean. In the long run, it’s really simple. You asked me why I have to do this. That’s the answer.”
“Yeah, I see, Mom. But there are a lot of people who disagree with you, aren’t there? Like the government, a lot of people in town, your own brother. And your own son.”
“Maybe they — and you — do, Bryan,” she said, her voice quavering. “All I can do, I guess, is hope you can at least respect what I’m doing.”
“Mom, to be honest, I’m not sure I can.”
The phone rang. “I’ll get it,” Iris said.
Bryan watched his mother, wondering when was the last time they had received good news on the phone. Her back to him, Iris listened, and her shoulders slumped. She slammed down the receiver.
“I’ve been fired.”
“Oh, God, Mom. Why?”
“That was Parker. He said he doesn’t want me working in the store any more. He told me he doesn’t want a jailbird — he actually used that word — working in his supermarket.”
She sat down again and buried her face in her trembling hands.
Bryan wanted to comfort her, to embrace her and tell her everything would be all right. But he stayed where he was, watching her cry.
FIVE
Bryan came into the kitchen the next morning to find the usual note from his mother on the table. He jammed his T-shirt tail into his shorts and got to work.
Kevin and Otto roused themselves about ten o’clock. I guess a pre-dawn trip to the ecological trenches would be too much for them today, Bryan mused. The two men devoured eight eggs, a pound of bacon and six slices of toast before they shouldered their packs and took off. Wonder if they have their camera this time, Bryan thought.
He was finishing up the dishes when Ellen burst in and threw herself into a chair. Her eyes were puffy, her hair messy, and anger flashed in her green eyes.
“My parents told me I can’t see you any more!” she cried.
Bryan, as calmly as he could, folded the towel and hung it on the rack under the kitchen sink.
“My mother,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Damn her, anyway!”
“Oh, don’t blame her, Bry. Mom and Dad are being pigs about this.”
“What did they say?”
“It doesn’t matter. A lot of stupid stuff.”
Ellen swept her hair back. “Run away and join the circus?” She laughed hollowly. “Become street kids in Vancouver and get our faces on a milk carton?”
“Too bad a person couldn’t trade in their parents like an old car,” Bryan said.
“I don’t know. Mine have too many miles on them. I wouldn’t get much on a trade. One thing, though,” she said, serious again. “I’m not going to stop seeing you, Bry.”
He let his breath out slowly. “Good.”
“So don’t look so sad,” Ellen said after a few moments.
“It isn’t just that,” he said. “Mom was fired last night. Her boss says he doesn’t want her to work for him because of her arrest and that.”
“Oh, Bryan. Your poor mother.”
“Poor is right. No job, no pay. No allowance for me. Lucky we still have the two boarders for the time being. My mother,” he finished.
When Bryan and Ellen found him walking up and down the hall in the hospital, Jimmy was humming a country-western tune — what he called hurtin’ music — looking caged and bored. His left arm, encased in a plaster cast, was supported across his chest by a cloth sling. His face was discoloured and swollen, and an ugly red scrape marked his skin from chin to ear. He told them he was okay, doing fine, chasing nurses and looking forward to coming home the next day. Bryan heard the false cheer in his uncle’s voice.
Ellen and Bryan picked up a couple of hamburgers and some fries on the way home, planning to nuke them in the microwave and watch a couple of game shows or laugh at the soaps that afternoon. As they walked down Bryan’s driveway, Ellen pointed to something lying on the damp ground.
“Hey, what’s that?”
Bryan picked up the object, brushing the damp earth from it. “It’s a wallet.”
“Brilliant deduction, Sherlock. Open it up.”
Pinched under a stiff steel clip was a thick sheaf of money. “Wow,” Bryan said, riffling the folded bills. He pulled out the driver’s licence. “It’s Otto’s,” he said.