Architects Are Here

by Michael Winter

  TWO

  A DOG WAS HITCHHIKING just after Kingston, or at least sauntering down the road and when we slowed down it hopped in through the open back window. It looked like it had learned it as a pup. It was brown and tan with a long stripe of silver down its back.

  It’s a girl, I said.

  She just sat back there, open-faced, gamely sizing up the road ahead, as if to say keep her going.

  We got out and looked around. Nobody and nothing anywhere. Hello, I yelled.

  She looks like a free agent, Dave said.

  She looks starved. She had found the chicken.

  After three miles she was resting her cheek on the joints of her paws. She was asleep.

  Trusting sort, I said.

  Who could hurt that.

  There are people who dont care for animals.

  They arent the kind to slow down to allow one to jump in.

  Well that one is living proof of your theory.

  It isnt a theory, just reacting to your assumption.

  What was it.

  That she’s trusting.

  So instead she’s ignorant.

  She’s experienced.

  She’s thirsty.

  Youre thirsty.

  Both our mouths were dry and we didnt want to talk. I dont like paying for water, and the places we passed all looked like they were stocked with bottled water in coca-cola coolers with narrow washrooms offering one tap that runs a mix of hot and cold, water probably infected with beaver fever and none of them with choice dog food.

  We lost Lake Ontario behind our right shoulders, to the Thousand Islands, then the Gulf of St Lawrence narrowed into Gananoque. This is what we drove through in this part of Canada—the leftover froth of empire and the presidency of the New World.

  Could I live here. David said he once wanted to buy an island but Sok Hoon wouldnt live on an island and now she was living in Montreal, which is technically an island. We passed a town famous for the platform scale. You can weigh anything from an ocean liner to a box of cherries. We crossed a brook and I stopped for that. The dog perked up. All three of us scrabbled down the highway gravel and sloped ourselves over rocks in the river and took gulps, even the dog. The bright dust we raised floated and sank over us and landed on the water.

  Me: She’s not a water dog.

  She looks like if water touched the outside of her body she’d dissolve.

  Do you think you could love a dog that didnt like water?

  Dave: I love everything. That’s my problem. I’m too easy with forgiveness.

  No one mentioned absolving guilt. Youre such a not-a-good listener.

  Okay I could love a dog that didnt like water.

  We sat and stared at the bridge. How much money did it cost to cross this trickle of water. Who paid for it. That’s the power of a federal government.

  David found a piece of red rope in the woods and hauled it out for a temporary leash.

  She needs a meal other than chicken.

  We took a detour into Gananoque. We were close to the US border. We looked for a roof that suggested, we have dog food. But it was an Indian reserve. We asked someone, and he said, Follow me.

  We followed him in the car as he walked down the street. And then down another street. Then he went into a house. The dog still with her head on her moist paws. If it was me, if I was that trusting, I’d flake right out on my back with my paws pointing to the roof.

  You’d press your luck.

  Did I say that out loud?

  Youve been talking aloud, my friend, since we left.

  I keep thinking I’m alone.

  Strange how when we’re alone we talk as if there’s someone to answer.

  What’s strange is how often I’m quiet when I’m with people.

  I assumed that would be understood as a corollary. Youre actually not much of a quiet one, Dave said.

  I feel quiet.

  We looked at the front screen door where the Gananoque reserve Indian had disappeared. Did he understand what I asked him? Had I offended him, called him dog food?

  I could picture the strong elbow opening up the screen door, the shunt of a shotgun magazine and the double-barrelled blast straight through the windscreen, the hot weight in the chest.

  Most people havent a clue what theyre like, David said. Sok Hoon kept complaining that I took over the conversation, interrupted her and wouldnt allow her to say anything. I believed her until my mother said that Sok Hoon must be a handful, she never shuts up and is always getting hammered with the babysitters.

  How is your mother.

  She’s good. She’s set up with that doctor. Dr Manamperi. She’ll put him in the ground and then sell all the antique furniture and move back to Michigan. But Sok Hoon, my god.

  You know I refinished that furniture.

  What furniture.

  Dr Manamperi’s furniture. That was like my first summer job. He has great imported furniture.

  Well my mother will auction it when he’s gone. I’ll let you know about the auction. But I’m trying to talk about Sok Hoon here.

  I like Sok Hoon.

  Yeah, David said. You used to share, what, a flirtatious sidecar of knowing glances with Sok Hoon.

  Was he quoting someone? Some preface to a domestic novel?

  What are you talking about, I said. And anyway who better to get hammered with than the babysitter.

  Then the man returned with a yogurt container and passed it to David through the window. Here you go, he said.

  It was pebbles of dry dog food.

  We let the dog out and she lunged at the food. David poured it out on the grass and the three of us watched her eat it. The dog chewed at the grass like a goat.

  We found her, I said, just outside Kingston.

  I dont recognize the dog, the Indian said. That dog has a lot of faith in her.

  And then we climbed into the car. Which way you headed, the Indian asked.

  Montreal.

  Could I get a lift to the highway.

  And he got in with the dog and we drove him back to the Trans-Canada and he crossed the road and stood there, waiting for traffic to Toronto. There was something of the Indian in both of us. It’s a male thing. In the end, if you stripped us down to a loincloth, we’d be okay. We’d get on. We’d find something to look at and to believe in. I guess it’s love. Even without the love of a woman, a man can get by with the trees loving him, or a flat tract of water.

  I was in terrible shape, Dave said, when Sok Hoon moved out. Everything I looked at in the house was full of Sok Hoon. She was putting chunks of furniture in the car. I saw half a bottle of Sumol on the front seat. Would I have ever tasted Sumol, he said, if not for Sok Hoon? And that morning, in the Land Rover when she strapped Owen into the back seat. They were headed for Montreal. Like us now. I saw the old man next door say to Sok Hoon, Your husband is waving. I was watching them from the window, Owen in his red kimono. I was in my underwear. I was waving through one of Owen’s stuffed toys. A dog. I was trying to connect through the childish mode—you know all about that with your Toby act. The dog in my arms. Dog waving. And it’s so silly, but that dog had a presence through us.

  Dave I understand.

  I made him sad, he said. I had him look puzzled at the thought of them leaving, I put his glass eyes under his paws.

  The fact that he fessed up to this made me less angry about Toby. Perhaps it wasnt such an act of betrayal on Nell’s part. Maybe most men have a channel to childish intimacy and men use it, when necessary, to lure a woman’s heart. But this act did not retrieve Sok Hoon. She’d had enough. And by the time she was all set up in Montreal, David had cheered at his prospects. When you grab a tissue, he said, and the box lifts with the tissue then falls again. You know youve reached the end of your woes. When there arent enough tissues left to hold down a box, that’s when you know youve been crying enough for one day.

  He hadnt fully loved Sok Hoon. There were things about her. Something vulgar about her f
eatures that was arising with age.

  Sok Hoon, I said, has to be the most beautiful woman youve ever been with.

  He agreed that Sok Hoon was a gorgeous woman. These were small things you notice, he said, after being with someone for years. Sok Hoon has a good body and face and good feet and hands.

  My god youre fit for no one.

  Who is, he said. Who is.

  And I had driven him into a deep despairing pocket of truth. That Sok Hoon was successful. She’d gone to Montreal after working with some fashion designers in Toronto, and now she was a partner in an eco-friendly fashion label. The brand had caught on with the people who wanted to save the world from warming up. The label was involved with a research lab that turned recycled oil into fabric. During a failure in the product the lab techs found they could stretch the oil so thin it could cover water like a blanket, which, in arid countries, means you can halt evaporation and prevent malaria. Sok Hoon designed a line of clothing that could prevent third world catastrophe. A first for fashion.

  There was something true in David’s account of my bond with Sok Hoon. We did connect. And when I first learned about David and Nell there ran a vein of retribution that made me wish Sok Hoon and I had driven over a state line. We were driving past Brockville as I thought this. The grey smooth eyeless factory. I was trying to make eye contact with this factory, find its eye, when something unusual rammed my hips and the dog was on top of me barking madly at the side window. And then behind us a car was veering away—it had cranged into the back passenger side. We were doing the speed limit.

  David: Dont be angry.

  Can you get this dog off me.

  Be very pleasant and patient and remember we’re going to make him pay.

  It’s obedient how we both signalled and slowed down to take a turnoff to a coffee shop gas station. The dog had an eyeline on the driver. I noticed the richness of his signal light, as if it was some internal pulse. David reached into the glove box for my wide-format camera. You keep him busy, he said.

  The dog lunging for the door. We decided to lock her in.

  She barked hard and muffled. Baring her varnished teeth.

  He was a lanky man in a shorn fur coat. Perhaps fox. There was something wrong with his back. Oh my god, he said. If you hadnt been driving into me.

  Sir, you swept into us.

  There was a large impression above the wheel well. David kneeling to get a good angle.

  It’s so wide, David said, I’m getting the Brockville plant in every one.

  So what do we do here.

  The fox coat was too short in the sleeves. It looked like his mother’s coat. The fact that he was driving a cranberry Lincoln made the coat into something precious.

  David: We call the police, we share insurance numbers, your rates take a hike and we get our pursuit vehicle some original LAPD gear.

  Okay okay we’ll wait for a cop. I’m not sure this was absolutely my fault.

  This will cost you thousands.

  It’s body work. On an old car.

  The car was moving from the power of the dog’s barking. We tried to ignore it.

  I noticed the steering is affected, I said, from the accident.

  I know my god dont I know it.

  He was perspiring lightly and I thought he should take off the coat. But we stood there leaning against the damaged car and David took out his pebble to call the police. Faces getting gas turned to look at us. Men with trays of coffee passed by and pretended to be concentrating hard on keeping the coffee level. There’s nine hundred acres of flat land facing this gas station. All that grew was billboards.

  That’s a nice coat, David said.

  You want it.

  I’m just admiring it. It looks South African.

  It’s not South African.

  You know we dont need to go the insurance route.

  The man was already coming around to it.

  Five hundred would do it, David said.

  Man: And there’ll be no reporting.

  Report what.

  But answer me one thing. It wasnt entirely me.

  He said this as if a greater truth had to be answered.

  David: It was you.

  He unbuttoned the one white button on the fox coat and reached back to his wallet. It was long and on a chain. Alligator leather. You dont often see money with no folds in it. All I have, he said, is eighty-five.

  David:There’s a cash machine.

  Isnt eighty-five good enough. Look at what you did to my Lincoln.

  It’s five or nothing.

  Where you guys from?

  David told him Toronto.

  Where exactly in Toronto.

  David: We live on a barge near the Beaches. We’re homosexuals. It’s like a trailer park for gay barges.

  He looked at me to see if this was true. I’m on my way, he said, to visit my family in Moosonee. I’m the successful son. I’ve got to look good and feel good and arrive good.

  David: But youre not good.

  I’m about as bad as you can get.

  David: Have you killed anyone.

  He pressed, with his thumbs, the capsules of leather in his wallet.

  I’ve ordered killing.

  He said it so succinctly that we believed him. A man who has organized murder. But maybe he was just matching the outlandishness of David’s lies.

  David: You married?

  Married, he said. He shook his head. Like, who’d have him. It’s just me and the car, he said, in this world.

  Your Lincoln hardly felt it, Dave said. Can I sit in it?

  The man let David sit in the driver’s seat. The workplace of a murderer. There were no keys. We waited for David to enjoy himself. And David remembered who we were.

  I’d ask to sit in your car, the man said, but that dog looks set to tear my throat out.

  We can either do the money, Dave said, or we can trade cars.

  The man thought about that, and I began wondering how the Lincoln handled. I wasnt averse to the idea, I just wasnt sure what a Lincoln would fetch for resale in Newfoundland. The man rubbed his neck and seemed disappointed with himself.

  I’d do it, he said, but it’s not technically my car.

  It was then we understood this incident was stretching his mind. The implications. The car was a fixture in crime. The car had to maintain anonymity. But he was also thinking Strangers on a Train.

  They walked over to the cash machine like men about to take a piss. I stroked down the dog and watched them talk. She licked me and I was moved. The man handed David the money from the crevice of the bank withdrawal and then the money from his long wallet. He took his receipt as if to remember what he’d done with the money. Perhaps he could use it on his taxes. Then he removed the fox coat. At one point they both laughed. He shoved the coat at David and David daintily draped it over his forearm. Then the man walked past me without seeing me. It was as if he’d forgotten he was dealing with two men and had driven the concern out of his mind. He was back to focusing on Moosonee and being the good son in the only thing he owned.

  He had a three hundred daily withdrawal limit, David said. So we made it three eighty-five with the coat.

  You look sad.

  There was a woman in front of us, Dave said, did you see her? At the cash machine. I was staring at the crown of her dark hair. And I remember looking at Sok Hoon’s straight hair.

  Amen to that, I thought. What are you planning with the coat.

  Doggy dog.

  We waved as the Lincoln smoothly turned and departed like some foreign yacht.

  David gave the dog the coat. Then he took a windshield squeegee from a container of washer fluid and opened the trunk and leaned inside. He jammed the squeegee at the dent and it popped out. The dog lifted up from her coat and barked. Her first friendly woof. You could hardly notice a mark.

  A good wax job, he said. It saved the paint. You know he plans on putting that Lincoln on the train.

  We caught up to th
e Lincoln and drove a little bit together. David wagged the undented rear quarter at him until he got the joke. The dog up on the back seat now happy. We kept a corner of that cranberry Lincoln in the stock-car mirror, just to make sure he wouldnt crang us again and drag our unconscious bodies into the ditch to wait for the slug from a hired killer. A malicious crang. Then he peeled off north while we crossed the border to a line of orange construction signs powered by solar panels. A row of fluorescent cones with heavy tire-rubber bases. Signs that read TRAVAUX. Welcome to Quebec, under construction.

  THREE

  IN THE DARK, gunning for Montreal. I leaned my head against the passenger window and stared at a trapezoid of blue reflected light in the base of the window, like a pilot fish tracking the car.

  This is where the Greyhound stops for sandwiches, David said, and pulled over. The customers were not the ones that you see on planes. I had forgotten that cheaper forms of travel attract poorer people. One woman with a chain of tickets—connections that would take her deep into northern Quebec. There were cases of emphysema, middle-aged men in worn clothes, a woman carrying a toaster, students and no children.

  David:You looking for someone.

  There’s always someone, I said, who stands in line with a pillow.

  When we hit centre-ville, David said, I want to get some glasses. I’m squinting.

  Dont you need a prescription.

  I have a prescription. I’ve had it for four months in my wallet. It’s just they dont make glasses I like.

  And he widened his eyes again, trying to stretch the cornea.

  Okay we’ll get you glasses.

  We veered into Montreal and took all those crazy ramped exits. There must be a billion dollars of concrete hovering in the air around Montreal. They remind me of the rings in the Olympic logo, and Montreal has that Olympic association. The word Expo too. When youre young you think a certain place has particular things, and when youre older you realize theyre all over the world.

  We felt our way down to the centre of town, the way you approach stairs in the dark. We stopped into a Lenscrafters ten minutes before closing, but all their frames were too small. We asked for a boutique and there was one across the street. Apparently we were in the glasses district. Watching David point at frames in a cabinet lit with recessed light, the woman turning the sign in the window over, so it read open to us inside. I hadnt known Dave to be so fussy. They need to be bigger, he said. I have a big face. The woman in the boutique helped him. She had a big chest and short arms and it was a challenge for her not to knock anything over.