Dearly Departing

by Geoff North

  Why do they put up with us?

  “Ray! Have you zoned out again, bud?”

  “Huh?” He lowered the fork with its piece of meat still stuck to the prongs onto his plate.

  Charlie leaned across and snapped his fingers in front of Ray’s face. “Are you going to finish that? The rest of us were done over ten minutes ago. It’s time to head to the bar.”

  He looked down at his unfinished meal. “No, I’m not all that hungry, I guess. Too much beer.”

  I’m no better than anyone else here.

  They left the buffet and wandered out into the night. Ray would miss this part of the trip. The warm evenings, the long walks through the immaculate grounds, and the feel of the ocean breeze as it rustled through the palm fronds and passed gently over his face. They stopped in at a line of resort shops and did some hurried shopping for family and friends back home. Calvin treated the other three to some expensive cigars. The four men lit up and continued walking.

  “I’m getting laid tonight,” Charlie said.

  “You’ve said that every night since we got here,” Dooley replied.

  “And it came true three out of six nights. If I score tonight, I’ll be batting a better than five-hundred average.”

  Ray wanted to say something, but kept his mouth shut. Calvin spoke up instead. “Crawling back into our room after three in the morning hasn’t been the highlight of my vacation.” He took a few big puffs from his Monte Cristo and blew the smoke in Charlie’s face. “What’s really pissed me off is your total disregard for communicable disease. You’re a doctor, for Christ’s sake. I would expect someone in your position to behave a little more professionally.”

  “It’s not like I’m being unsafe. I use protection.”

  Dooley asked. “Don’t you have a girlfriend?”

  “Jessica’s a girl, and she’s a friend. We’re not engaged or anything.”

  Calvin was shaking his head. “You’re a whore, Charlie, admit it.”

  “This coming from a married guy. Why don’t you admit it—if that wedding ring wasn’t stuck on your fat finger, you’d be sniffing around, too.”

  Ray wasn’t a violent man, but he had the sudden strong urge to grab Charlie by the back of his scrawny neck and drive the man’s face into a palm tree. He was a doctor, and he should’ve known better. It was guys just like Charlie Riese that ended up stealing wives away from guys like Ray Wallace.

  Ray didn’t strike out at his friend. He remained silent and smoked his cigar, listening to the other three argue all the way to the bar. It was almost full by the time they got there. They found a table still dirty with empty glasses from the last occupants and sat down. A pretty waitress somewhere between thirty and forty years of age wearing a short black dress spotted them a minute later and came to clear the table away.

  “Buenos nachos, amigos.” She picked up the glasses and over-flowing ashtray in one smooth move and wiped the surface clean. She pointed to each of them in turn. “Rum and Coke, cerveza, cerveza, and red wine.” The wine was for Ray. He enjoyed a glass or two after meals and had no stomach for hard liquor.

  Charlie took the girl’s hand and kissed the back of it. “Marta, you’re an angel. How do you remember everything everyone drinks night after night?”

  She pulled her hand away gently and slipped the five-dollar bill Calvin had placed on the table. “Because you Canadians drink like fish, how could anyone forget?”

  They all laughed and Marta winked. “Back in a jeffy.”

  Dooley laughed even harder. “A jiffy.”

  Marta shrugged. “You see? My memory not so good speaking English.”

  Charlie lit a cigarette and left it to smoulder in the ashtray. Calvin pushed it back towards him. “Promiscuous and a smoker. Hardly the ideal doctor-type I had in mind when I hired you.”

  The old argument started up again. Dooley grinned at Ray and the two friends toasted each other when their drinks arrived. It went on like that for another hour or two. The wine was taking effect, fuzzing the front of Ray’s head and making his ears hot. The lobby bar was packed and too loud. The air was filled with smoke and the smell of cheap aftershave and perfume. Young bodies were grinding up against him, chairs were bumping into him from behind.

  Ray downed the rest of his wine and stood. “I need some fresh air.” Dooley saluted him and ordered another round of drinks. Calvin was yelling at Charlie, but Charlie wasn’t paying much attention. The doctor’s hands were filled with the young Russian girl sitting on his lap.

  Ray staggered outside and sat heavily onto a bench planted between cement pillars in front of the resort. Much better, he thought. There were a few people milling around, waiting for buses and hailing taxis, but it was nothing like the bar. He breathed in the cool evening air and closed his eyes. His head started to spin, and Ray waited patiently for the feeling to subside.

  He heard a jet plane somewhere above in the dark. Arriving or departing, he didn’t know which. It reminded him again of another jet from his past.

  Ray leaned back against the bench and remembered.

  Chapter 2

  1980

  Raymond lay back on the grass and tossed his toy up into the air. He watched it waft back down. The little man’s parachute deployed efficiently enough, as it had on the last six throws, and the toy returned to Raymond’s waiting hands. He studied the three-inch-tall soldier between his fingers and untangled the pieces of thread glued to its shoulders. Raymond folded the tissue-thin paper of the parachute the strings were attached to—just as the instructions had said—and tossed the toy back into the sky.

  Raymond was ten years old, but he was wise enough to appreciate the ingenuity of such a simple thing. A bit of string, paper, and plastic went together making one of the coolest toys he’d ever played with. Why the chute was bright yellow and the soldier pink instead of green didn’t bother him much. He was having the time of his young life, and that’s all that really mattered.

  His grandmother called from the house. Supper was ready. Raymond folded the soldier’s chute back together and tucked him away in the front pocket of his jeans. He looked back up at the blue sky one more time and smiled. It was the middle of summer—plenty more time to play outside when supper was done. He started for the back door but decided to check the front street before heading in. Raymond’s parents would be picking him and his sister up soon. He had hoped they would’ve left the farm and been in town already.

  Raymond loved his grandmother, technically, meaning all kids had to love their family members, no matter how they made you feel. Gramma Minnie was older than just about everyone in Rokerton, and she was still living all on her own at the age of eighty-five. Grampa Ned had died before Raymond was even born. He would’ve been almost ninety by now. As much as old people creeped Raymond out, he sometimes wished his grandfather was still alive. It might have given these forced stays with their grandmother a little more variety.

  He looked up and down the street. No sign of mom and dad. A dog barked from across the street and lifted its leg to squirt against a car tire. Raymond sighed and jogged for the front door resignedly. Now they would have to listen to the fear talk. His Gramma had already started with Raymond’s little sister. Five-year-old Alicia was sitting in her chair at the kitchen table on Gramma Minnie’s left side. The little girl’s eyes were wide open and unblinking, staring up at the old woman as if she’d just encountered some form of carnivorous animal.

  “I worry about your parents, dear. They had you and your brother too late in life. I warned your mother. Forty is too far along for more babies.” She glanced at the clock over the stove. “Oh my, it’s already past five. I hope they haven’t had a car accident on the way to town.”

  The children stared up at the imposing figure of their grandmother. She was tall for an old lady, even while sitting. The big black-rimmed glasses sitting on her hawkish nose magnified her old grey eyes and the nest of wrinkles all around. Her curly hair was a little blue where it wasn’t
white, making her look like a scary clown that had retired about a thousand years ago. There wasn’t much funny about her, though. Gramma Minnie was too serious. She looked after her grandchildren when she had to, but there was nothing fun about the visits.

  “They ain’t been in no car accident, Gramma,” Raymond said as he took his place across from his sister at the supper table.

  “They haven’t been, not ain’t been, ignorant boy,” his grandmother snapped. “Go wash your hands.”

  Raymond rolled his eyes and did as he was told. The house was small, so he left the bathroom door open and listened to her continue with the fear talk. “Your father isn’t a young man anymore. He works hard and doesn’t eat properly. His heart could give out at any moment... I wouldn’t even want to imagine what would happen if he had some sort of attack behind the wheel.”

  That’s probably all she ever imagined, Raymond thought. He wiped his hands against his tee-shirt and hurried back to the table. “Dad’s as strong as bull, Gramma. He ain’t going to have a heart attack.”

  “Isn’t,” Minnie corrected him again. “Quit saying ain’t. And too much strength can do an older heart in. Your father is fifty-five... hardly a spring chicken.”

  Alicia scowled. “Daddy ain’t a chicken.”

  Minnie Wallace smacked the girl across the back of her hand with fingers resembling stringy white prunes. “Is not!”

  Alicia started to whimper. Raymond crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue while the old woman’s attention was still drawn on his sister. Alicia giggled. He loved his little sister—a lot more than he loved Gramma Minnie. He couldn’t stand to see her upset. Raymond was always there, sticking up for her when his older brothers ganged up on her. He couldn’t kick at his grandmother’s legs like Bruce and David, but he could make his sister smile.

  He tried changing the subject. “Mom said she was going to pick raspberries while Dad was finishing up in the field. There’s lots of raspberries in the garden. Maybe Dad’s helping her.”

  “Oh dear... I hope she hasn’t had some sort of sunstroke. It’s been an awfully hot August. I wish they would sell that blasted farm and move into town.”

  “Mom hasn’t had a sunstroke. She wears a big hat and there’s plenty of shade in the garden.”

  “Still... I’m going to give them a call.”

  There was no sense in trying to talk her out of it. The fear talks always ended with her on the phone. Raymond and Alicia watched as she dialled the numbers. They shovelled their suppers in as quickly as possible. The sooner they were done eating, the faster they could get back outside. At least Gramma Minnie was an excellent cook.

  Alicia was finishing her milk off and Raymond was already standing by the time she hung up the receiver. “No answer. They must have been in a car accident. I can’t see what else would be taking them so long.”

  “Is it okay if we go back outside to play, Gramma?” Raymond asked.

  Minnie Wallace nodded absently. “Perhaps I should call the police... or maybe the hospital.” Raymond took his sister by the hand and the two slipped out through the back door as their grandmother was reaching back for the phone.

  The cops and docs would know how to handle old Gramma, Raymond thought. They got at least two or three calls from her every month. Alicia spotted the half-finished bottle of cream soda her brother had left on the lawn. She began to drink its warm remains as Raymond flung his pink soldier high above both their heads.

  An hour later most of the play had been worked out of the two. Alicia was curled up into a ball, sleeping in the same patch of grass where she’d found the pop. Raymond had run out of energy as well. He was lying on his back next to her, still throwing the soldier up into the air, over and over. It wasn’t going all that high anymore. Two of the six strings had broken away, and there was a hole in the chute causing the figure to plummet faster.

  Where were his mom and dad? As much as he hated giving in to his grandmother’s fear-mongering, Raymond couldn’t help but feeling a little worried. They were at least two hours late. What if something had happened? Gramma Minnie had been right about one thing; his parents were old—a lot older than the parents of his friends in school. Some of them liked to tease him. They said his mom and dad were old enough to be his grandparents. A few had said even meaner things. They told Raymond that his parents would be dead and buried by the time he graduated from high school. He’d always laugh the mean talk off but sometimes wondered how long his parents would be there to see him through life. He fully expected them to both be around when he graduated. Raymond didn’t put much thought into marriage and having children of his own—he was only ten after all—but he did worry they might not live long enough to see any grandchildren. Thinking of things like that made him sad. So much was already out of his control. All he could do was hope.

  Raymond finally gave up on the figurine and settled his tiring attention on a jumbo jet streaming thirty-thousand feet above Rokerton. It was headed west, jettisoning a steady trail of grey. Raymond held his thumb out at arm’s length and blotted the plane away. A moment later the distant rumble caught up to his ears. Where were all those people going, he wondered? Vancouver was out west. Raymond had been born in Vancouver. His parents used to live out in British Columbia. They moved to Manitoba six months after Raymond was born. They promised him that one day the whole family would go back there for a visit.

  The rumble began to fade. Raymond turned over onto his stomach and watched as the plane disappeared into the sinking sun. His heart began to ache. He had the mournful idea that his parents were already on that plane, heading back to Vancouver, and they had left him behind. What if they had died in a horrible car wreck? Maybe their ghosts were on that plane. Maybe Raymond would never, ever see them again. He started to cry.

  “What’s wrong, Raymond? Why are you crying?”

  He wiped his eyes and tried smiling at his sister. “Nothing’s wrong. Just being stupid.”

  “It ain’t... it is not stupid to cry,” Alicia offered. “People cry when they’re sad and scared.”

  “I’m not scared, Alicia. Maybe a little sad.”

  “How come?”

  “Just thinking silly stuff.”

  Alicia rolled up onto her knees and patted her brother’s shoulder. “Don’t be sad, Raymond. It’s okay to think silly stuff. I always think silly stuff when we come to Gramma’s.”

  Raymond looked up at his grandmother’s house. The kitchen window was open, and he could hear the muffled sounds of her television from the living room. “Best time at Gramma’s is when she lies down on the couch after supper and falls asleep to them dumb nature shows.”

  The dog across the street started to bark. An old green pickup truck pulled up along the curb and Raymond’s parents climbed out. Alicia rolled over her brother and ran to meet them.

  Thomas Wallace scooped his daughter up into his arms. “How’s the little reptile?”

  “I’m not nobody’s reptile!”

  He rubbed his stubbly chin against her cheek. “Quite right, my darling. You’re my reptile.”

  Raymond approached them with his hands stuffed nonchalantly in his pockets. “About time you guys showed up.”

  Nancy Wallace ruffled his brown hair. “Has Gramma been talking her nonsense again?” Raymond shrugged. His mother placed a knuckle under his chin and lifted his face. “Have you been crying? For God’s sake... what did she say this time?”

  “Nothing, Mom. She’s sleeping like a log.”

  “You sure everything’s okay?”

  He nodded. “What took you so long getting here?”

  Nancy glanced at her husband and Thomas winked. “Your father helped me pick the last of the raspberries.”

  “Me and Alicia already picked a lot yesterday, there weren’t that many left.”

  Raymond’s dad started for the house. “You kids get in the truck with your mom. I’m going to turn Gramma’s damn television down and say goodnight.”

  Raymond squ
eezed into the front seat next to his sister. His mom sat in beside him by the passenger door. He looked up at her admiringly. For a lady that might or might not drop dead of old age before he graduated, she sure was pretty. Leaning against her, Raymond peered beyond his mother’s beautiful profile through the passenger window. The jet stream had dissipated into a wide band of puffy white.

  Like ghosts, Raymond thought. They look like ghosts.

  His mother leaned down and kissed the top of his head.

  “You speak English?”

  Ray opened his eyes and straightened up on the bench. “Pardon me?”

  The pretty woman standing before him spoke again. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were having a snooze.” She held a cigarette up between her fingers. “I was just going to ask if you had a lighter.”

  Ray offered up empty hands. “I don’t smoke, and I wasn’t snoozing... just daydreaming.”

  She sat down next to him in the narrow space before he could slide over. Her firm buttock rubbed against him. Ray leaned forward and moved to the right. The girl’s blonde hair brushed against his face. He could smell shampoo, and he could feel the warmth of her close to him. “Don’t mind me. I’ve had way too much to drink. My friends say I get too close and chatty when I’m drunk.”

  Too close, Ray thought. He hadn’t been this close to a woman since Caroline. Six years. “Tell me about it,” Ray said, trying to sound young and casual but coming across more strained and awkward. “I’ve had one too many cocktails, myself. It’s my birthday. The big five-o.”

  “You’re kinda cute for an older guy.” She started to giggle, and the noise ended up snorting out from her nostrils. Ray wasn’t sure if she could even properly see him. Her eyes were beginning to cross.