Norm shook his head. “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“He lives around here somewhere,” I said. “My dad and I dropped him off in front of the gas station a month or so ago.”
“Lots of people live in these rundown old houses,” Norm said. “They did, anyway.”
“So, you’re saying you don’t know our friend?” Dan asked.
“Not exactly.” Norm scratched his neck. “I see him now and then. But,” he hesitated, “his name’s not Howard.”
“How do you know that?” I asked. Or Dan did.
“Why did you want to find this guy again?”
I was beginning to feel impatient so how I answered his question was more my way of handling things than Frank’s. “We think he’s very ill,” I said. “And if we can’t find him soon we’re going to have to call the doctors at the Metal Springs Hospital and have them send out a search party.”
As if that would ever happen.
“You mean he’s mental?” Art said.
“We all are. I have T.S. and he has . . . ” I pointed at Dan. I didn’t know if he actually had something you could name or not. The doctor never told us.
“B.I.N.G.O.,” he said. “So does Howard.”
“You’d better hope there isn’t a full moon tonight,” I added.
Norm looked from Dan to me and back again. I could tell we’d worried him. His face was red, where his freckles hadn’t blotched together to make it brown. But he wasn’t dumb.
“Okay,” he said. “Why do you really need to find this guy?”
“Because,” Dan told him, and I guess honesty might have been the best way to go in the first place, “he’s my friend. I want to make sure he’s all right.”
“Our friend,” I said.
Norm whispered like he thought the gas station might be bugged. “I don’t want to get into trouble, but this guy you’re talking about? He comes in here once a month to pick up his government check.The owner charges him twenty bucks a month to use this station as his home address.”
“You’re not the owner?” Dan said.
“You think I’d be wearing this monkey suit if I owned the place?” Norm took off his bow tie and laid it on the counter. “Your guy comes in to get his check like I said. Sometimes I let him use the shower in the back. But I’m telling you, his name’s not Howard.”
He opened a cupboard behind him and took out a brown envelope with a clear plastic window on the front. He held it out for us to see. A name showed plainly through the window.
Willis Asche, Jr.
“If you can just tell us which of these shacks he lives in,” Dan began . . .
“ . . . we’ll get him and take him home with us.” I finished his sentence for him.
Norm shook his head. “I don’t know. I really don’t. But if you have time to wait, I’m sure he’ll be in to pick up this check any minute. It came yesterday. I’m surprised he hasn’t been in already.”
6
HOWARD
NORM GAVE US TWO PLASTIC CHAIRS to set out on the gravel in front of the gas station. He even offered each of us a free coke and a bag of chips. “On the house,” he said. “I feel bad about your friend having to pay to pick up his mail here. He isn’t the only one, either. It’s just . . . I needed the job.”
I appreciated him saying that. After all, he was just another kid trying to make the best of a bad situation.
The wind had come up a bit since we arrived and the sky had that funny look it gets in the fall when it might let down a lot of rain on your head, or it might decide not to. Dan drank his coke fast and then wandered around to the other side of the garage where I couldn’t see him.
I thought Howard might be coming on the bus, so I turned my chair toward the highway. While I sat there watching the road I began thinking about what we’d do if Howard actually said yes.
Plan A would be to fix up a place in Cato City, if he insisted on being some place rundown. At least he’d have a great view living there. And we’d be close by.
Plan B involved Frank bringing in another trailer like Dan’s for him. Or Howard could even have the egg and Dan could move into the house.
I was so involved with all the possibilities that when I heard Dan calling from the other side of the garage, I had to check out where I was for a minute. Then I got up and ran around to where he was.
“Someone’s coming,” he said. I looked where he was pointing and saw a figure moving toward us from a little shack off by itself. We stood there and watched as the figure became more Howard-shaped every minute.
“Howard!” Dan called. He waved his arms. I thought Howard saw us but he didn’t change his pace.
Dan did, though. He began to jog forward.
“Wait!” I yelled. I put on a burst of speed and caught up with him. I’m supposed to be the greeter, after all. I belong in the front line.
“Howard!” Dan called again.
We both called it out together. “Howard!”
A gust of wind hit us then and it started to rain — not really hard, but not joking around, either. We were all soaked by the time we got together.
It didn’t matter, though. As far as I was concerned, all three of us were weatherproof.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There are many fine people working in our mental health systems. I appreciate their efforts and in no way do I mean to disrespect the work they do.
Other appreciations go to:
My granddaughter, Erika Jessen, a beautiful young woman of fifteen who is the inspiration for Matti. Erika first learned she had Tourette’s when she was in grade three. If I have misrepresented what it’s like to live with T. S., the error is entirely mine.
My son Stefan, who has allowed me to write about his experience as a patient in Alberta Hospital when he was eighteen.
Holley Rubinsky, who showed me what it was like to be out on Kootenay Lake in a small boat and helped me get to the other side. She also allowed me to have a close encounter with one of the bears that hung around her house in Kaslo, B.C., in the summer of 2012.
Larry Badry, fire chief and paramedic unit chief of Kaslo, who gave me insight into the multiple hats he wears in his small town.
The people of Gold Hill, Colorado and Slave Lake, Alberta. They survived fires in their communities and were willing to talk about it.
My partner Joseph has lived with me living with this story for four years.
Mary Woodbury in Edmonton and the Mitchells in Columbia Falls, Montana. At various times they loaned me a quiet place to work.
As always, my mentor and friend, Glen Huser.
Thistledown Press for once again seeing value in my manuscript. Without the persistence of small presses like them, many fine books would never be published or read.
Finally, to my editor, R. P. MacIntyre who has an incredible nose for where a story wants to go. Thanks for patience, encouragement and vision. You are the best.
Author’s note
The quote beginning, “Hey, Crazyred . . . ” is from Dante’s Divine Comedy, the section called Inferno, Canto XXII, Lines 40-42. Translation by John Ciardi.
Dianne Linden’s two previous young adult novels have won critical praise. Peacekeepers (2003) was a finalist for Alberta’s R. Ross Annett Award for Children’s literature in 2004, and the Ontario Library Association’s Red Maple Young Reader’s Choice Award in 2005. Shimmerdogs (2008) was a silver medallist for the Governor General’s Award for Children’s Literature in that same year and a finalist for the R. Ross Annett Award in 2009. Dianne Linden lives in Edmonton.
Visit Dianne at www.diannelinden.com
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