Break Away

by Sylvain Hotte

  When I was a baby, my mother left the house one day in the middle of winter, leaving me alone in my cradle. She walked down to the beach through the snow. Then she left her clothes on the beach, and walked out onto the ice floe until she disappeared. I never knew her. And I was twelve years old before my father could bring himself to tell me the truth. When Michel brought me home and told him what I’d done, he sat, grief-stricken, on the sofa for quite a while. He was reliving his worst nightmare : his son had re-enacted the greatest tragedy of his life.

  Throughout my convalescence, at the hospital and then back home, Louis looked after me with tender care. He told me one story after another about the Nitassinan Innus and their amazing adventures, both spiritual and moral. I watched him immerse himself in the deepest reaches of his childhood, tapping into memories long since buried, and every day I sensed a little chunk of cold melt in my heart and the timid flame trying to re-ignite.

  On the night before Christmas, we were all seated in the living room in our pyjamas around the Christmas tree, watching a holiday special on television with popular singers and movie stars. It couldn’t have been more boring. But we were all down in the dumps ; watching TV was the only way to get our minds off our troubles, thanks to all the glitz on the tube.

  I gave my aunt some windshield wipers and my father a pair of mitts. Sylvie gave me some fishing flies and a sci-fi novel. From Louis, I got the bamboo pole I had lined up at Canadian Tire — I suspect my aunt had been watching me in the store that day — and a Montreal Canadiens baseball hat. I hadn’t changed my mind about quitting hockey. My father hadn’t said a word about it. Except that something in that gift expressed what he really hoped for down deep. I thanked him with a handshake, but I didn’t put it on.

  I dress warmly. Ever since my sad escapade, I’m pretty sensitive to the cold and I have to make sure I’m always wearing a warm tuque, a wool scarf and good mitts. Otherwise, for sure I’ll start shivering and it’ll be hours before I can stop.

  At the beginning of January, a few days before school started, something was really bothering me. I had to face up to it. One morning, I got up early with the idea of going up to the cabin and back on foot. I’d be snowshoeing the trails for a good couple of hours.

  It was the first time I’d been out since that fateful day and I was pleasantly surprised to find the temperature comfortable for that time of year. I crossed the 138 carrying my backpack, my snowshoes in my hands. I put them on in the ditch at the edge of the forest, using my poles to pull myself out of the ditch, and zigzagged briskly between the trees. I continued walking down Mill Road as far as the trail that led to the cabin. It took me almost two hours to get there.

  Around the cabin, there were skidoo tracks and footprints. Somebody had been there. When I opened the door I saw that everything was in order. They’d restacked the woodpile with hardwood. Some branches on the floor filled the place with their piny scent. And to my great pleasure, the rabbits that Stéphane had hung on the cord had been removed.

  I was anxious to shed some clothes and start the fire, but I just couldn’t handle sitting down. My legs were twitchy and I felt like I could walk for hours. I shut the door behind me and walked up to my sitting rock. The sun was shining and the light reflecting off the frozen lake was brilliant. I sat down on a pile of snow and ate the sandwich Sylvie had made for me : venison, pickles and cream cheese. One of my favourites.

  After relaxing for a few minutes while the sun warmed my face, I walked down to the lake, which was frozen solid. The wind had cleared the snow in a number of spots, uncovering the thick pale blue ice. It was rough and bumpy. I had to squint and shield my eyes from the sun in order to see the big bay and the beaver dam at the far end.

  I walked to the dam with my snowshoes attached to my backpack, prodding the ice with my poles, as if to test its solidity at every step. After pausing for a moment to scan the horizon from the top of the old dam, I jumped down to explore the bog. There were plenty of animal tracks, including deep moose tracks I recognized right away.

  I followed the tracks and saw a number of holes in the bog where the moose had dug up the grass that hadn’t yet frozen, due to the heat produced by the layers of moss and organic material accumulated over time. The tracks led up to a pile of old weather-beaten grey logs where I found the moose’s antlers.

  There were two giant pieces that could have only belonged to the unusual animal that had been stalking me since autumn. With the onset of winter, the male loses its antlers, which begin to grow again in the spring. I felt great sadness sweep over me, but great happiness, too. I came back to the cabin with a light heart and spent the rest of the day hanging up my trophy on the wall beside the stove. Before leaving, I also hung the Canadiens hat that Louis had given me, and then headed home.

  The first week of school was pretty quiet. My teammates invited me more than once to sit with them. But I declined. Not because I didn’t want to see them, but because I knew perfectly well that the only thing they’d be talking about was hockey. I didn’t want to hear them talk about the games they’d played or the upcoming games.

  Tommy came over and sat down across from me to find out what was going on.

  “What the hell happened ?”

  “I don’t know, I just flipped out. I wanted to test the ice, the engine got out of control and there I was, in the water.”

  We both laughed.

  “So, what are you up to ?”

  “Not much, I’m going up to the cabin. If the ice is nice, maybe I’ll do a little skating.”

  He simply smiled. Then, the bell rang and we went to class.

  Friday night, I was ready to leave. The next day, I walked up to the cabin, with my skates in my backpack. I had peanut butter and bread for next day’s breakfast, and a big piece of rabbit tourtière in a flat Tupperware.

  I spent Saturday getting a good fire going and scraping the ice with an old aluminum scraper that I found under the cabin. Wearing my skates, I pushed back the snow to clear a big rectangle the size of a skating rink. Then, despite the bumpy and uncomfortable surface, I skated for close to an hour. The fresh air filled my lungs and I could feel the warm blood pumping through my veins. Feeling at peace, I watched the winter sun set behind the endless forest. I saw a plume of smoke rising into the pink and purple sky off in the distance, behind the mountain, over where the Company had logged the tall spruce. The sky was full of stars when I got back to the cabin. Inside, it was warm and cozy. I spent the rest of the night in front of the woodstove, in my boxers, warming up the tourtière.

  I slept deeply, without dreaming, wrapped up in my sleeping bag on a carpet of pine branches. I woke up with a start. A two-stroke engine, the typical sound of a snowmobile, was coming closer. I was sure of it, hearing the way the sound, amplified by its own echo, reached me. As I was getting dressed, I heard it pass far off. Before I could put on my coat and lace my boots, the sound stopped. Then, after a couple of seconds, I heard someone start to swear. Unable to find my tuque, I grabbed my Canadiens hat hanging from the moose antlers and went outside.

  Standing outside was a tall guy with long blond hair, a blue hat on his head and tight jeans stuffed inside his cowboy boots. He was yelling, obviously at the end of his rope, literally kicking a green snowmobile. It was a 1970 Skiroule 440.

  Mike ! And there on the lake, out in front of my cabin, he had met his Waterloo. He was actually taking his anger out on a machine ; an unthinkable response he would surely regret at some point, considering his near maniacal kind of care, driven by excess love, for anything you could describe as mechanical.

  “Hey, big Mike,” I said, feeling in a real good mood as I ambled toward him.

  Now he was cursing.

  “That skidoo still messing with you ?”

  Still more curses, as he put the swear words together in brand new combinations of the juiciest French Quebec had to offer. I sat down on the dreaded skidoo. The leather seat felt comfortable. I squeezed the handles of the
chrome handlebars. It was an awesome machine, for sure.

  “There’s some sort of curse on this thing,” he said nervously.

  “Uh…”

  “I already told you, it’s not human. It’s possessed !”

  “Come on, Mike. You know just as well as I do it’s just a machine. There’s a solution for every problem. You just overlooked some little detail. A tiny detail. If you think it through, you’re gonna get it.”

  What I said made plenty of sense, but it didn’t seem to get through to him. In fact, it wasn’t even remotely likely to calm him down, considering he had rebuilt everything more than once, and considering that he was a great mechanic who had probably reached his mechanical wits’ end more than once before now. I was tempted to say that he had taught all this to me, back when he gave me a hard time for not checking my plugs. But I quickly thought twice about it when I saw him turning red as a tomato, his eyes bulging out like he had lost it. For a moment I was worried he’d jump on me and wring my neck.

  “Listen, smart ass,” he said. “If you can get it running and drive it around for a while and it stays running, it’s yours, okay ?”

  I turned away. I had one knee on the black leather seat and one foot on the ground for support. I cranked it once, strong and sure. The engine started up like a charm and began to purr contentedly. I sat my bum down on the leather seat and settled in. Then, pulling my Canadiens hat down over my ears I lit out like there was no tomorrow.

  I went across the lake and back ; the snowmobile showed not a sign of wanting to stall. Smiling the dumbest smile your could imagine, I made two or three circles around Michel, fishtailing on the ice. He watched me, incredulous, shaking his head from side to side. Then, in a rare display of elegance, he took off his Maple Leafs hat and tossed it at my feet. Happy now, I straightened out the Skiroule and gunned it, moving along at top speed, as if I could reach the sky.

  By the time I got back, Michel was gone. He’d decided to walk back on my snowshoes. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen someone snowshoeing with cowboy boots on ? Me neither. It must have looked weird.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about Jessie’s letter asking me to look after her father. But I didn’t even feel like going close to their place. And even less to see Robert Pinchault and talk to him. But now, cheered up by my new snowmobile, I decided to take my unlucky 3rd Side Road, just to check things out.

  The big car was parked in front. But all the house lights were out, as if nobody really lived there. Out back, the old barn’s roof sagged under the weight of the snow. I kept the engine running and sat there, motionless, wondering what to do.

  When I saw the living room curtains move, I cleared out in a hurry.

  I drove the Skiroule slowly along the railroad tracks. Then, since there was no way I was going to ride on the shoulder of the 138, I took the trail that went behind the arena. There, on top of Fir Hill, I saw the bus waiting for the team, on their way out of town for four days. They were scheduled to play four times in as many nights, including games in Lévis and Rimouski. I could see the burgundy van of Samuel’s parents, who were giving him last-minute advice and reminding him to be sure and do his homework and not to eat too much junk food. The bus’s engine began to rumble and then it circled the parking lot before climbing on to the highway, its windows caked with mud.

  I coasted to a stop and parked the Skiroule in front of the house. Then, I cleaned it lovingly, trying to wipe up as much water and brush off as much snow as I could. The green paint gleamed under the neon light. I lowered my eyes when I saw her on the porch, a dish-towel thrown over her shoulder : Sylvie, with a question in her eyes.

  “So, how’d you like the tourtière ?”

  “Scrumptious,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “What are you doing on Mike’s skidoo ?”

  “I solved a problem he couldn’t. He didn’t believe me. We made a bet, he lost, and now it’s mine.”

  She frowned as if it was just another of my inventions for getting out of doing something. But this time my story was true.

  I was in the kitchen washing my hands when I noticed that the pick-up wasn’t there. When I asked Sylvie what was up with my father, she shrugged her shoulders. He had a contract in the bush ; he was gone for awhile, she said. I didn’t ask for any more details. That was all she knew.

  There was one helluva storm that week. The electricity was out for three whole days, and we had to get our heat from the little stove in the basement. Sylvie and I played a lot of cards by candlelight.

  She took frequent breaks, watching the snow fall and fall, blown by huge gusts of wind that shook the whole house. She was worried about my father. As for me, I spent hours looking out my bedroom window wondering where he was. Where could he be staying ? What company was going to give him any contracts at this time of year ?

  School was closed. Getting around town by car was tough, but I had my green machine. On days like those, after a big winter storm, people would drive their snowmobiles right down the streets as though they owned them. They’d go to the grocery store, the pharmacy and the gas station. The town was full of the sound of loud engines making a wicked racket. And everybody would be in a good mood. They talk about the storm, they joke around and the next thing you know, the neighbours would be inviting you over for dinner.

  I was in Mr. Simon’s little hardware store to buy a box of six-inch nails and an axe that I wanted to bring up to the cabin. I overheard some guys shooting the breeze in the aisle next to me while I checked out the prices of a couple of tools. They were talking about the roof of Pinchault’s barn ; it had collapsed under the weight of the snow.

  For a while now, I’d been keeping my head down, my Habs cap pulled tight over my ears. I know everyone recognizes me wherever I go. And I know they’re all wondering why I quit hockey. They won’t talk to me about it, but you could feel it. I barely waved to the old-timers standing around shooting the breeze, then I hopped onto my skidoo.

  A big snow-plow on train wheels was clearing the tracks in the direction of 3rd Side Road. It cleared the rails with a big triangular shovel that pushed the snow to both sides. At the wheel, I recognized Jean St-Pierre with a cigar stub between his teeth. He flashed me a big thumbs-up when he saw the Skiroule.

  What the two men had been talking about was true : Pinchault’s old barn roof had collapsed. The structure on both sides was still standing. It was the middle section, weakened by age and weather, which had failed to support all the snow. Robert Pinchault emerged from the rubble and looked over at me. I felt like disappearing, but he waved to me. I hesitated, not sure what to do, feeling awkward. But, remembering Jessie’s words so intensely it seemed like she was at that moment whispering in my ear, I got off the skidoo and walked over to him.

  He wore a flat woollen cap and a plaid shirt similar to mine, in different shades of blue. A cigarette hung from his mouth, the smoke curling under his yellowed moustache. He looked at me with a little smile and with eyes that seemed clear, maybe for the first time. Pale green eyes, with Jessie’s sparkle.

  “How’s it going, young man ?”

  “Pretty good. I’m sorry about what happened, Mr. Pinchault.”

  “Bah… It’s no surprise,” he said, hands in his pockets. “I should have seen it coming. I’ve got plenty of wood out back. I guess I just never had my heart in it.”

  On top of a pile of debris off to one side, I saw what was left of the rabbit hutches, with broken glass sticking out. Robert Pinchault had begun to clean up the mess. He’d even gathered up all the weird stuff his son had accumulated in the hayloft. The old horse, which had survived, was tied up behind the house. Only the tractor was still parked where it had been before.

  He talked about his plans for the spring. How he hoped to rebuild the barn. His grandpa had built it and it was the least he could do to rebuild again before he died… Make things right on the land…

  “Since I screwed up all the rest,” he added with a long sigh that he exhaled w
ith the smoke of his cigarette.

  I cleared the snow off of my rink at the lake. It took me more than an hour. I kept turning to watch the smoke ascending from the cabin through the trees. There was an arctic chill in the air and the stove was so cold that I filled the cabin with smoke trying to get the fire started. I wanted to make sure it would burn heartily through the night ; they were predicting minus thirty. For a moment, I watched the stars twinkling over my head, growing brighter as the sun sank. And for the second time, I saw a column of smoke rising up into the sky in the distance. I figured it would take me at least an hour to go there. I came back in to have a bite to eat without bothering to get undressed. As soon as I had wolfed down my dinner, I put on my skates and went out under a clear sky to skate under the stars.

  I had my old Koho hockey stick and I practiced my stop-and-goes, moving laterally, making my abductor muscles work. I practiced until, exhausted and out of breath, I collapsed onto a snow bank to watch the magnificent sky, which began whirling around in circles.

  All week long I went up to the lake after school to skate, getting home real late.

  Sylvie complained that there wasn’t anyone at home any more. And both of us began to seriously worry about my father ; it had been quite some time since he’d contacted us. I spoke with Mike who hadn’t heard from him either. Nobody I asked had a clue about where Louis McKenzie might be. When I mentioned the contract he was supposed to have gotten, the eyebrows went up around Mr. Simon’s hardware store, everybody exchanging glances.

  The following Saturday, there was someone on the lake. To be precise, I didn’t actually see a person, but there was a fishing shack mounted on skis that someone had pulled out to the middle of the bay. Parked next to it was a snowmobile. Smoke was coming out of a black chimney pipe. It was the first time to my knowledge anybody had ever installed a shack this far from town. You see them all the time on the river estuaries, but on a lake like this, no.