Jesse had no problem sleeping either. Obviously not the shy type, when he came out of the shower (which was down the hall, across from the front desk, and past six other rooms) he wore nothing but a towel, which he promptly threw to one side of the room before retiring for the night. Tina and I were used to naked men, but Jesse didn’t know it; I think he was trying to rattle our cages a bit. Mine was rattled, but it would take a lot more than male anatomy to stir Tina’s imagination, so his attempt to show off didn’t have quite the impact he might have thought it would.
In fact, Tina continued to drill him about his combination punches even after he’d tossed the towel. From the look on his face, I’d have to say that it was the first time in his skirt-chasing life that a girl – my sister – had not been the least bit impressed by his masculinity.
I guess I must have drifted off at one point, because the sound of Tina and Jesse’s bickering startled me. It was about three in the morning. He was asking if she had any aspirin, and she was reminding him what it would do to his blood.
“You’ll just have to work through the pain. We’ve got to get that cut healed or Stone will aim for it as soon as he hears the bell.”
Jesse swore at her.
“That’s just the pain talking,” said Tina.
“You’re the only pain that’s talking.”
Then Jesse mumbled something else – I couldn’t make it out – then they were quiet for a minute or two. The room was dark, silent except for the fan and the faint sounds from a party going on a few doors down. I was closest to the window; the motel’s neon lights flashed red and blue patches of colour across my pillow.
At one point, Jesse spoke softly to Tina.
“Your old man, he’s a boxer, right?”
“Was.”
“What happened?”
“Wrecked his hand.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
Silence again.
“You don’t like your old man?” asked Jesse.
Tina didn’t reply.
Then she answered with a question. “Where’s your father?” she asked him. “Did he take off on you?”
“Yeah,” muttered Jesse in a sarcastic tone. “He was drunk every night on Jack Daniels, never held a job in his life, then he ran off with some buddies of his to rob a bank and now he’s in jail.” He sighed heavily. “Typical Indian. No good bum.”
“All right,” said Tina, “I’m sorry I bought into the stereotype and assumed the worst. I apologize, okay?”
It took a few minutes for Jesse to cool off.
“He died in a construction accident. Back in Oklahoma. He worked six days a week and he loved his family more than anything in the world.”
“Sorry,” said Tina. “You moved to Millbrook after that?”
“Yeah,” replied Jesse. “Without our father to support us, my mother came back to Nova Scotia to be with her people.”
“Do you like it there?”
Jesse laughed scornfully. “I’m not even going to answer that.”
—
Tina didn’t want Jesse to spend more than a few hours driving each day; that way she would have plenty of time to force the guy to work out. She had a mean streak, my sister, and loved to watch men suffer at her command. So it was two days before we reached the border at St. Stephen, New Brunswick.
Crossing into the United States at Calais, Maine, was a bit like entering high school; everything – the sky, the trees, everything – looked different somehow. And being on the other side of the Canadian border made it okay for me to wave at people in cars as they drove by, sing out loud with the radio or lie down and stick my feet out the window.
“Get your feet back in the car,” said Tina, who, after the win in Amherst, was riding in the front seat again.
“What share of the purse do you want?” asked Jesse, fumbling through his back pocket with one hand while driving with the other. He pulled out his wallet and threw it at her. “Take what you want.”
“That belongs to Paul, not me,” declared Tina. “You can pay for our meals and motel out of it though. That way I can keep what I have for Boston.” She pushed the wallet back at him. “And don’t be so eager to give up your share of the profits. The promoters are going to grab enough off you as it is. Hang on to as much as you can for your family.” She sneered. “Don’t be such an idiot.”
She reached for the newspaper she’d picked up in Calais and like a kid to the comics, headed straight to the sports page.
“I guess Paul was right. I couldn’t believe it.” She kept reading.
“Believe what?” I asked.
“Ryan Byrne did win the Eastern Canadian title.”
Jesse turned to her. “I said he was good.”
Her eyes never left the page.
“Yeah,” she mumbled. “Yeah, now I see,” she said.
“What do you see?” Jesse and I asked in unison.
“Schulman was robbed. He should have won. Ref called a technical knockout – said they were both in bad shape and couldn’t finish the fight.”
“But the fact that Ryan won on points will still help Dad, right?”
Jesse looked at me in the rear-view mirror.
“You need Ryan Byrne to win so your dad gets business, is that it?” he asked me.
“Otherwise we fold and the gym is history,” I said.
“Well then,” said Jesse to Tina, “be glad that Byrne took the title.”
Tina shrugged.
“I thought that gym was important to you?” Jesse asked.
“It is.” Tina paused. Then she turned to him. “It’s my life.”
Jesse kept his eyes on the road for a long stretch of highway, then he starting pumping Tina with questions.
“Why are you going to Boston, anyway? And don’t tell me it’s none of my business, I’m getting sick of that excuse.”
“I’m training to become a gypsy fortune teller.”
“Very funny,” said Jesse. Then he looked into the mirror at me again. “What’s the big secret? Will you tell me?”
“Not unless she wants every hair ripped out of her head.” Tina changed the subject. “As you know, Mankiller, this fight in Portland is an important one. That’s why we’re going to have to take some heat from goons like the pair in Amherst. Win in Portland and it’s on to Boston for the North American title. Win that and by September, you’re going for the world crown.”
Jesse didn’t say anything. He just kept motoring along and ignoring her like a cab driver would ignore chitchat or a garbage man would flies.
Then it hit him.
“So are you going to be around in September? Will you still be in Boston when I get back there?”
“I … I, uh … yeah, I’ll still be in Boston, but I won’t be able to manage you for the big one.” She turned to him. “Don’t worry, if you win the next two fights, you’ll have your pick of any manager from Florida to Cape Breton. I guarantee that.”
“Maybe Paul can do it by then,” I suggested, but my idea didn’t go over well.
“No, Ellie,” said Tina, “he won’t be able to do it. The stress is too much. Probably kill him.”
“Why can’t you do it if you’re going to be in Boston?” asked Jesse.
“Thought you didn’t want me for your manager.”
“Thought you weren’t good enough.”
God, they loved to argue.
“You two never stop!” I said. “You sound like you’re married or something.”
That did it. That shut them up. Neither one said a word until we stopped for lunch.
We didn’t know how long it would be before another truck stop, so the next place would have to do; unfortunately, the next place was Bill’s Comfy Diner. Somewhere between Calais and Bar Harbor, it was the epitome of every
thing you didn’t want in a restaurant.
“Complete Meal – 3.95” advertised the diner in its fly-specked window, while the greasiest, most unappetizing smells oozed out of a big metal thing on the roof. I don’t know who Bill was, but I figured if he ate there very often, he was probably pushing up daisies by now.
There was a stained, yellowed menu pasted on the door and a stack of them on a table inside. Tina told Jesse and me to try to find something decent to order while she made a phone call from the desk.
“Who are you calling?” I asked her.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Are you calling Dad?”
“No, Ellie,” replied Tina with a sneer. “I’m calling the poison control centre in advance, so I know what to do when we all start collapsing after a meal in this place.”
She talked to someone for at least five minutes (and it must have been a collect call, because there was no way that Bill would spring for it) then joined us in a grimy booth.
“Hello, good day, what can I do for you folks today?”
The twenty-year-old waitress approached the table with a practised cheerfulness, but when she noticed Tina was a dwarf, the smile dropped off her face. Her way of coping with the awkward situation was to never let her eyes fall anywhere near my sister. She looked at me, she looked at Jesse, but when it came time for Tina to order, she said, “What will you have?” while keeping her gaze firmly fixed on her order pad.
“How do you stand it?” asked Jesse, once the waitress had left for the kitchen. “Do you count your blessings or something?”
“I would if I had any.”
“Crap,” said Jesse.
“What the hell blessings have I got?” She thought for a minute. “You’re no blessing. You’re a pain in the—”
“I didn’t say I was a blessing.” He took a swig of water. “I just wanted to know how you dealt with idiots like her. What do you do? Imagine them falling off a cliff or something?”
“Don’t be stupid,” snapped Tina. “Lay off, okay?”
Jesse turned to me. “Is your sister always such a crab?”
“In a word, yes.”
“Well, then,” offered Jesse, turning to Tina, “I guess we know which one of the seven dwarves you are. And it isn’t Bashful.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
We’d driven about fifteen miles past the diner, and must have been at least twenty from the next town when it happened. I heard what sounded like a small explosion in the engine, then Brandy went thunk thunk thunk and Jesse turned off the highway and down a country road. He pulled onto the shoulder and wound up at the end of someone’s lane. The mailbox read, “Dot and Ellwood Valentine.”
Weeds and brush and shrubs and bushes dominated the landscape, but there was a house in there, its roof barely peeping over the greenery.
Brandy needed time to cool off before we could even look at her engine. Jesse checked the trunk for extra coolant. The jug was almost empty.
“Oh, God,” said Tina. “What are we going to do now?”
“Don’t have too many options.” Jesse unfurled the convertible top and locked the car doors. “We’ll see if these people have some coolant; if not, we’ll have to call for help.”
We marched up the long, overgrown lane. The sky was clear and blue overhead, with billowy white clouds floating effortlessly across the sky. On either side of the driveway a row of bored-looking pine trees grew so idly, you’d swear they were yawning as you passed by.
A few buildings became visible once we were halfway up the lane. The square white clapboard house looked like if you blew hard enough, it would come down in pieces. Several barns in various stages of disintegration stood precariously among the weeds, and we had to skirt around so many old cars and parts of old cars that I thought the place must have previously been a junkyard or the terminus of a dead-end road from which some poor souls had never returned. The only other explanation was that the Valentines’ farm had been the landing site of the refuse from a passing tornado; broken lawn chairs, bicycles and tricycles and steering wheels and fenders were strewn a half mile in every direction from the house.
The tornado must have hit the house, too, because part of the roof had blown off, and shingles were lodged in the grass, hanging from trees and caught in bramble bushes.
We kept walking, and before long the front porch was visible. Across it sat an entire family: Mom and Dad and what appeared to be about seven or eight kids – you couldn’t tell because the younger ones kept chasing each other in and out the front door. The parents and two teenaged daughters looked comfortable, reclined in an old car seat that served as a dandy couch. From the same era as Brandy, it was long and red, made of vinyl and cloth and had holes along the edge where white stuff was sticking out.
When the family saw us, the whole bunch of them waved. Not one of those quick little “I wonder who that could be coming up our lane” kind of waves, but rather a greeting normally reserved for a friend you’ve known forever but haven’t seen in years.
I waved back, but Tina and Jesse chose instead to simply nod their heads and plod forward. They were more concerned with getting the car fixed and getting to Portland; I was fascinated by the Valentines.
The one who I figured must be Dot was a large woman in a dirty housedress; her legs were thick and looked like they’d been driven into her shoes. She had long, straight hair that hadn’t been trimmed in twenty years. And you could see clear divisions: the oldest swatch was bleached yellow; it ran from her waist almost up to her chest. The next was auburn, then came a greyer version of the auburn and the rest of her hair was just grey. In her right hand was a beer and in her left a cigarette and in her lap was a half-eaten bag of sour cream and onion potato chips. Beside her on the car seat was a copy of True Confessions magazine.
“How are you?” she bellowed, and the kids charged at us and grabbed at our clothes and started hollering a bunch of stuff like, “Do you wanna see where my sister found mushrooms and threw up?” and “Our cat had eleven kittens and they’re orange.”
Dot and Ellwood introduced themselves and all the kids, but the only names I could remember were Darlene and Charlene because they were twins and the same age as me. They had long brown hair, glistening teeth, thick white skin and half-closed eyes. Charlene blinked every time she spoke and had a nasty habit of bending her thumb all the way back to her wrist. She screamed, then giggled, when she noticed Tina was a dwarf.
The eldest of the Valentine children was eighteen-year-old Walter. He was busy working underneath a beat-up old truck, so they pointed at his feet. I think he said something like “Howdy” but can’t be sure. He waved at us with an adjustable wrench.
Darlene and Charlene, once they’d taken a good long look at Jesse, ran into the house. Dot kept insisting we sit down; she pushed Ellwood off the end of the car seat with one foot. Then she patted it to encourage Jesse to sit beside her.
“Get these folks a beer,” she told her husband, so he opened up a blue metal cooler that was inches away from his ankle and started handing them out.
“No thanks,” said Tina.
“You’re guests here,” said Dot, gesturing to Ellwood to open the bottles and placing the open bag of potato chips on Jesse’s knee. He handed them to me, got up and stood next to Tina.
“What we really need is a bit of coolant for our rad,” said Tina, “if you can spare some.”
At that point, the screen door flapped open and out flew Darlene and Charlene, this time in halter tops that were so low cut, I fully expected something to spill out at any moment. I think Jesse did too because his eyes kept swooshing across their chests like a search light over the water. There was enough makeup plastered on their faces to service a small theatre company, and they’d even found the time to rub on some fake tan but not evenly, so the fronts of their arms and legs were a pumpkin colour, while the bac
ks of their limbs remained as white as crocuses in the snow.
Darlene shoved Tina aside, then grabbed Jesse’s arm and started caressing his muscles.
“Where’d you get these?” she said.
“The supermarket,” quipped Tina. “Look, I’m sorry, but we’ve got to get to Portland and all we need is some rad coolant, which we’d be happy to pay for….”
By that time Charlene had Jesse’s other arm.
“Walter will fix your car,” she said. “Tomorrow.” She blinked at Jesse. “You can stay with me tonight.”
“You leave him alone, now,” scolded Dot, like her daughter was mauling one of the new kittens. I noticed Jesse didn’t make an attempt to break free of the girls, and Tina saw it too; she rolled her eyes at Jesse so many times I thought they’d drop out of her head.
“Look,” Tina asked Dot, “can you help us or not?” She turned to Jesse. “You haven’t said a word.”
“You’re doing enough talking for all of us.”
Ellwood was still opening beers, and when Darlene reached for one, Dot slapped her hand.
“You’re not old enough. I don’t want folks sayin’ I’ve brung you up wrong,” she said, but I had a feeling it was one of those “locking the barn door after the horse was out” kind of things.
Realizing it was Walter that she needed, Tina bent down next to the driver’s side of the truck and tried to talk to him, but he just kept banging away at something with a mallet. So she reached inside the cab and honked the horn in order to get his attention, but that only served to get the kids screaming more than they were already. Finally, she grabbed both of Walter’s legs and pulled, but he was a bulky guy and she couldn’t budge him.
“Stays under there for hours.” Dot sucked back some beer. “He’ll be out come suppertime.” She shook her head. “The boy eats like he’s gonna be hung.”
The Manager Page 8