Dream Wheels

by Richard Wagamese

  “Well, I think you need to give yourself time to get your life in order, get settled somewhere, find a job, build your resources, live your life. You’re still young, Claire, you’re still beautiful. There’s a man somewhere for you.”

  “I don’t disagree with that. But until Mr. Wonderful explodes upon the scene, the gates to Playland are closed.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “I can do that,” Claire said. “I have to.”

  He sat at the kitchen table sipping coffee, watching the morning sun slant its way across the floor. She crossed his line of vision and he raised his eyes then to watch her work. It was her kitchen. The wranglers had their own quarters and cooked for themselves but she insisted on doing all the cooking for the family. Now, she busied herself with vegetables for the rich stew she knew he favoured, and he smiled as he looked at the line of her back. She was straight and strong. Her hands were steady and flexible as she whisked the edge of the peeler across the skin of the carrots and she watched the morning activities of the wranglers through the long wide window she’d wanted to run along the counter and the sink. She’d paced it off. It was a morning just like this and she’d paced off the perimeter of the house she wanted, hiking up the hem of her riding skirt and stepping assuredly through the tall, wet grass, talking to him, pointing, making sure he was hearing her. It was like she could already see it, and as he built it for her he became convinced that she had. She’d wanted a big kitchen, roomy, sunny, painted a warm yellow with lace curtains and a wide step-out porch facing south toward the barns and corrals. He sat in that very room and as he watched her looking southward out that window he loved her like he had when he was twenty-four and the adventure of their home life together was just beginning.

  The house she had stepped off that morning hadn’t changed in all those years but for the requisite paintings and reparations all houses needed as they aged. It amazed him because it had never needed to be more. Her vision had been complete way back then, and their home had emerged from the land as full and complete as a well-told tale and it had held the story of their time together easily, gracefully. He’d never questioned her vision. Not a lick in all that time. Victoria saw with her whole soul and her eyes were a bonus. Intuition, he supposed they called it in their highfalutin way, but he had no head for that kind of talk. Instead, he called it knowing. His wife had just known all her life what the next thing was. Hell, she even knew when the waltzes were coming at the country dances in town and she’d reach out to him as the chords of the last song faded, ready to pull him to his feet and into her arms. He only danced the slow ones and she always knew when it was her time. From the biggest thing to the smallest, Victoria had seen what was needed long before it was needed, and now, watching the straight, firm line of her working in her kitchen, he knew that whatever she was thinking had its answer built right in.

  “Enjoying yourself sitting there watching a woman work, are you?” she asked without looking at him.

  “Never more,” he said.

  “Well, I’m happy to provide your entertainment but we need to talk.” She wiped her hands on the calico apron she’d sewn.

  “Sure,” he said, reaching under the chair for his hat. “Step out on the porch?”

  “No,” she said. She slipped her feet into the high rubber boots she kept at the door. “Let’s walk. Out to your shed.”

  “My shed? When did you start smoking?”

  “Funny. It’s only you and Birch who forget that tobacco’s supposed to be medicine.”

  “It is medicine,” he said with a broad wink at her and a pinch at her fanny. “Calms me down. Just like the loving.”

  “Yes, well, at your age both of them could kill you.”

  “Man’s got a right to die happy.”

  She smiled at him and put a hand on his cheek. “That’s a fact,” she said.

  They stepped off the porch and walked across the lawn, through the gate and along the asphalt driveway a few yards before crossing into the main pasture at the front of the house. She locked the gate behind them and then stepped up to take his arm as they walked. The dog appeared out of nowhere and leapt around their feet awhile, happy to see them out and about that early. Eventually the dog moved out ahead of them, looking back now and again to make sure they hadn’t changed their mind and headed back to the house. They walked without speaking, both content to gaze about at the freshness of the morning and the mountains around them enveloping the valley like the edges of a great wide bowl. When they got to the shed he opened the door of the old truck for her, and she stepped up on the running board and turned to look at him.

  “Kinda like the first time, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “Every time,” he said and tipped his hat to her before crossing to the other side.

  He opened the heavy door and the dog snuck in quickly and settled on his haunches beside Victoria, looking straight ahead out the windshield and thumping his tail against the back of the seat. “Yeah, right,” Lionel said with a grin, settling in behind the wheel. “Like this’ll ever go anywhere again.”

  “It should,” she said.

  “Should what?”

  “Go somewhere.”

  “No way,” he said, assembling his makings on the dashboard. “She might not run anymore but this truck’ll never see the dump, woman.”

  “I don’t mean the dump,” she said.

  “What do you mean, then?”

  “I mean, it’s part of the family, it should go somewhere. It should run again.”

  “Yeah. Right. Running means parts, and parts for this old heap gotta be mighty hard to find. Besides, my bones ain’t got the wherewithal anymore for the stooping and the bending and the gripping of the wrench.”

  “I don’t mean you.”

  He looked at her steadily and knew where she was going. It hadn’t occurred to him at all. In fact, as he’d sat there with the dog the night before he’d even thought of moving the old truck farther back into the shed and putting exercise gear there for Joe Willie to use. Moving it meant getting Birch and a few of the boys to push it back once the harnesses and tools and such were cleared away some. Actually getting the engine to turn over again wasn’t even a glimmer in his eye, it was all about giving Joe Willie something, anything, to get him up and moving again. He could easily give up the evening smoke with the dog for his grandson’s well-being.

  She watched him rub the dashboard, small circles with the palm as if he were rubbing a favourite horse.

  “Nineteen thirty-four Ford V8 pickup,” he said. “One of the first years they made the V8. Gonna be the next big thing, the old man said when he give it to me.”

  “I recall,” she said.

  “Only girl ever rode in this front seat with me was you.”

  “I recall that too.”

  “We put a lot of miles on her them first years. Pendleton was the first show we got to in her, I recollect.”

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s still my favourite buckle.”

  He laughed and turned in the seat to face her, one arm slung across the seat back. “You and me and Pete the Pistol and Johnny Fines, the box piled up with our gear, singing crazy songs all across Wyoming with that buckle sitting right smack in the middle of the windshield. You wouldn’t let me move it even when the sun shinin’ off it nearly made me blind.”

  “There’s a lot of stories in this old truck,” she said. “Yours, mine, Birch’s, Johanna’s.”

  “Not to mention my daddy’s.”

  “Shame to just let them sit here.”

  “Pure shame.”

  They looked at each other for a long time.

  “Parts’ll be hard,” he said finally.

  “You’ll find them.”

  “Harder to get him out of the house.”

  “You’ll figure that out.”

  “It ain’t rodeo.”

  “You’ll figure that out too.”

  “You’re mighty certain about that.”

  “Nev
er more,” she said and squeezed his hand.

  Administration Visiting was at the end of a long series of corridors near the front of the lock-up. Boys were summoned regularly to see social workers, psychiatrists, lawyers and case management workers after they were sentenced. When they came to get him Aiden was puzzled. The court-appointed lawyer wasn’t scheduled to see him until the day before his court date, and there were no court-ordered appointments. He had no other business that he could think of, and as he walked along behind the two officers and looked at the jail he thought it was all probably a mistake.

  Then he saw Golec. The policeman leaned against a wall and squeezed a rubber ball in his left hand. He nodded solemnly at Aiden, who was ushered past him and into a small room empty except for a table and two chairs. Golec waved the two officers away before pulling up a chair opposite Aiden. The boy looked at him blankly. Golec didn’t speak right away, and the two of them studied each other. Whatever the kid was learning in here it couldn’t be good because Golec could sense a deeper detachment than he’d seen before. There was nothing in the boy’s demeanour to suggest either discomfort or anxiety, only a miles-away look that suggested either boredom or disinterest, and Golec realized how close he was to crossing the invisible line scratched into the hardscrabble surface of life. He’d seen it a lot. Men became as cold as the walls that held them eventually, their features as unadorned as the pocked and pitted concrete that framed their existence, and their emotions entombed like mummies in the deep recess. The boy sitting across from him was fast approaching the point where turnarounds became impossible. He squeezed the hard blue squash ball in his hand and watched the tendons flex.

  “And I heard that cops had no balls,” Aiden said. He spoke it without humour, and when Golec looked at him the placid cool of his face remained in place.

  “Yeah, well, you hear a lot in here that’s just guesswork.”

  “Gotta go with the evidence, I guess,” Aiden said.

  “Takes a lot of balls to find your way to this place, does it?”

  “Takes a lot of balls to make it in here.”

  “And you? You’re making it here, are you?”

  “I’m making it.”

  “Shame.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it seems to me that you have the stuff to make it just about anywhere you chose to. Doesn’t have to be here.”

  “You come here for a pep talk? Is that why I’m here?”

  “Not really. Just wanted to ask you a couple questions.”

  “I got nothing to say.”

  “It’s not about your case.”

  Aiden allowed himself a puzzled look and he leaned forward in his chair and folded his hands in front of him. “What, then?” he asked.

  “It’s about your mother.”

  Aiden sneered. “Yeah, right,” he said. “What do you need? Her favourite colour? Flowers? Perfume? You fucking guys are pitiful. What’s your angle? I get you in good with the moms and you ease up on my beef?”

  Golec squeezed the ball hard and held it, looking squarely at Aiden. Then he relaxed and changed hands with the ball. “Look, I’m sorry things went the way they have for your mother. She’s a good woman and deserves a hell of a lot better than she got over the years, but don’t throw me in the loop with other men.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I only want to help.”

  Aiden scoffed, then he smiled and shook his head. “They all only wanted to help. Help themselves, anyway.”

  Golec nodded. He rolled the ball slowly across the table. Aiden watched it roll, and when it eased against his knuckles he cupped it in one palm. “Squeeze it,” Golec said. “It feels good. Releases tension.”

  “Who’s tense?”

  “You’re not? I would be.”

  “You’re not me.”

  “No, I’m not, but this place would make anyone tense.”

  “I’m not anyone.”

  “That’s what they all say.”

  “That what this is about? They?”

  “Look, Aiden,” Golec said sharply. “I don’t have to be here. I’m not here officially. I’m here because I want to help. You may not believe that, and frankly, it doesn’t matter, but I’m here to help.”

  Aiden tossed the ball back lightly and eased back in his seat.

  “Your mother. Has she ever been anywhere?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know, a vacation, a cruise, a trip. Anywhere.”

  “Are you kidding me? Guys wanted to go around the world with her all the time but no one ever took her anywhere, if you get my drift.”

  “She ever speak to you about someplace she wanted to go especially?”

  “No.”

  “Would she like to get away somewhere?”

  “What the hell is this about? You want to take my mother away on a dream vacation so you can make it with her? Is that it?”

  Golec stood up and leaned on the table and looked down at Aiden. The boy didn’t move a muscle. “Look, Aiden, it takes a hell of a lot to help someone. I know because I’m trying to help you and it’s taking everything I have, believe me. So if you want to help your mother you better be prepared to drop the jailhouse bullshit and talk to me straight.”

  Aiden smirked. “All right. All right. No. I never heard her mention anything like that. Why?”

  “Because I know a place you could both go.”

  “Now?”

  “No. After your sentence, maybe during.”

  “During?”

  “Yeah. I could maybe put in a word to the judge about doing the last part of your sentence somewhere other than the hoosegow.”

  “You want to send me and the moms on a vacation instead of the joint?”

  Golec sat back down and leaned forward with his palms flat on the table. “It won’t be a vacation. You’ll be working your tail off. Your mom can just kind of relax there. Be with you. You could be with each other.”

  “Where?” There was a glint of interest in his eye and Golec could see the fifteen-year-old boy now.

  “I have a friend who has a ranch in the west. In the mountains.”

  “A ranch? Like cowboys and yippee-cay-yay and all that?”

  “Yeah. Yippee-cay-yay.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Maybe. But it’s out of the city, away from all the crap, lots of fresh air and hard work. It would do you good. It would do the both of you a lot of good.”

  “How you figure?”

  “Because it’s a change, Aiden. I can’t help you in terms of what the court will throw at you. Obviously they’re not terribly impressed by this whole routine or you wouldn’t be sitting here right now. But I can make suggestions for sentencing, and if you finish up on the ranch there’s a chance that maybe you can swing things another way for yourself. Change. A different look. That’s all I’m suggesting.”

  Aiden reached for the cigarettes tucked in his shirt pocket and took his time lighting up. Golec watched him unwaveringly, and Aiden liked that. Somehow it made him feel valuable, like what he would have to say had girth and size and weight. Substance. Like a man.

  “How long?” he asked finally.

  “I don’t know. It depends on the stretch you serve. The last third of it, likely.”

  “What do I do there?”

  “Everything, I imagine. It’s like a work placement. You do whatever they need you to do.”

  “How come you’re offering me this?”

  Golec looked at him hard. “Because you’re on a freight train to nowhere. You’re learning that tough and cool and wise talking can get you places. But it’s nowhere. Your mother wants a life for you, a good life, and even though she might have made some poor choices along the way, it’s always been in hopes of getting a good life for you. I just think the two of you need a break, a chance, a different roll of the dice.”

  “So this is all set?”

  “If you tell me so, I’ll make the arrangements with my friend an
d talk to your mother.”

  “If I say no?”

  “Then you’re on your own. It’s all I can offer.”

  Aiden looked around the room and then returned his gaze to Golec. “Hmm. Concrete and barbed wire or pastures and barbed wire?”

  “It’s no joke, son.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Aiden.”

  They sat in silence. Aiden smoked while Golec waited, unmoving and mindful of the great moment they sat in, one of those defining moments when the universe gathers itself around you in expectation, the choice hovering in the air like lightning waiting to strike. Aiden sensed it too and he looked anxious for the first time, and when he spoke it was deliberate and measured and strong.

  “I’ll do it. I’ll take it. But the same goes about my mother. I don’t want her here or the main joint until it’s all over. She don’t need to see this. Only when I walk.”

  Golec nodded and stretched out a hand across the table. Aiden stared at it, then lifted his gaze to meet Golec’s. They studied each other, and Golec felt the full measure of the boy’s resolve. He took the proffered hand and shook it firmly and then stood up and went to rap on the door for the officers and then walked out without speaking again. Golec felt a part of him go with the boy into the darkness and dankness of the world he inhabited.

  Birch looked at his father for a good long time, contemplating what he’d just heard. The truth was that he himself was at a loss as to what to do about his son. It cut him to see Joe Willie suffer, but Birch had been around rodeos and cowboys and hurt long enough to know that a man needed mighty big space when the bones let him down. Still, there was a pure need for a plan, and try as he might Birch hadn’t been able to put a thing together that made a whit of sense. Given the circumstances, anyhow—and the circumstances were a cussed mess. He’d settled on just letting the boy get his feet under him on the ranch and taking it from there.

  He pulled his tobacco makings from his pocket to give himself time to think. The old man hitched a thumb toward himself and Birch passed over the makings. For the next few minutes the two men busied themselves with building their smokes.

  “Parts are gonna be a bitch, that’s sure,” Birch said finally, putting a foot on the bottom rail of the fence and leaning his elbows along the top rail. “The metal don’t seem all that bad, so she might come up good with a scrape and paint, but that’s the easy part.”