Seeing Red

by Shawn Sutherland

  Still in a stupor, I stagger back along the gravel path and up the hill onto the street, continuing to wander aimlessly until I eventually find a crowded pub with live music. I have no intention of getting drunk—in fact, I’m deathly afraid of alcohol right now—but I just want to eat, relax and kill some time before I go back to the motel.

  I walk inside and the room is filled with loud, jovial people of all ages. A thirty-something musician with short hair and a generic, radio-friendly voice is playing cover songs on an acoustic guitar, mostly popular sing-alongs and classic Irish tunes. The bar counter is long and L-shaped and I find an empty stool at the far end next to a map of England hanging on the wall. The young guy sitting beside me drinks a red cosmopolitan and doesn’t say a single word to anyone the entire night. I order a beer and a glass of water and quietly keep to myself, listening to the music and taking in the surroundings.

  About ten minutes later an older woman across the bar asks me why I’m all alone on a Sunday night. I tell her I’m from out of town and she says I should have a nice young lady on my arm, promising to help me find one. I smile and nod and raise my glass to her. Tomorrow I’ll get the car fixed, I tell myself. But tonight I won’t worry about it.

  Sometime around one o’clock in the morning the bartender rings a bell to announce last call. I prepare to settle my tab and as I’m fetching my credit card from my wallet I see her coming in through the door—it’s Anna, the girl from the dock. This time she’s accompanied by a friend, a blonde woman who appears to be a few years older.

  For the last song of the night the musician plays a surprisingly good rendition of “Lola” by The Kinks. The crowd recognizes it from the first chord, and they immediately break into a drunken chorus; I grin in spite of myself and quietly sing along with them. I watch Anna and her friend buy two bottles of beer before moving to the front of the stage and shouting “La-la-la-la-LO-la!” along with the musician. During the verses they mumble the words and laugh, unsure of the lyrics. It’s cute.

  Suddenly I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn to see a short, heavy-set girl with straight black hair and a tight blue dress. She speaks with an East Coast accent and says, “Hey, we’re having a bonfire party on the beach after the bar closes, if you wanna come?” I look over at Anna again and she and her friend are singing “I’m not the world’s most masculine man . . .”

  “Yeah, sure,” I say. “Just let me know when you’re leaving.”

  She introduces herself as Tammy and then she smiles and walks away. I finish my beer and place the bottle on the counter and then nervously approach the stage. I keep my eyes focused on the musician as I sidle up beside Anna. When the song ends, everybody in the audience claps and cheers and then the noise gradually subsides; seizing the opportunity, I turn to Anna as if I’m noticing her for the first time and her eyes are big and bright.

  “Hey, did you hear about that beach party?” I ask, figuring it to be a safe place to start. When she looks at me, her expression moves suddenly from joy to concern.

  “Whoa! What happened to your eye?” She leans in close to inspect it and says, “Here,” while pressing the cold end of her bottle against the wound. “You should ice that down.”

  “Thanks.” I completely forgot about the black eye; apparently it’s still somewhat visible through the make-up.

  “How’d this happen?” she asks.

  “I got punched in the face.”

  “Why? What’d you do?”

  “I threw a pylon at a guy. It was for a good reason though.”

  She laughs. “Some people! Well I hope he looks worse.”

  “Oh, he does.”

  “You’ve gotta be more careful!” She pulls the bottle away from my face and says with a grin, “Nope! Still swollen!”

  “So, about that beach party—”

  “Oh yeah. We’re going. Are you?” I nod and she says, “Cool. My name’s Anna.”

  “Ethan.” I shake her hand.

  “And this is my cousin, Emily.” She motions to her friend and I shake her hand too.

  “I’m guessing you’re not from around here,” I say.

  “Nope! We’re from Perth. Do you know it? It’s a small town outside of Ottawa. We’re here on vacation. What about you?”

  “I live in Toronto, but I drove out here with a friend of mine.”

  “Ah, a city boy! That’s cool. Well, let’s grab another round and get going.”

  “I think they already did last call. . . .”

  “Oh it’s no problem.” She whistles at the bartender currently fiddling with the cash register. “Hey! Tim! Can we get three more?” He gives her a quick nod and retrieves three bottles of beer from the fridge below. She pays him in cash and hands one to me. I’m impressed. “Alright, lead the way!”

  The three of us follow Tammy and a band of locals down to a sandy beach at the southern end of town. It’s hard to see in the darkness and the moon is new, but, unlike in the city, there’s barely any light pollution, so the stars are shining brighter than I’ve ever seen them before. I walk carefully, navigating by listening to the voices in front of me, eventually arriving at a fire pit where logs have been arranged in a circle around a pile of ash. Tammy asks us to gather some firewood; Anna and I are given a flashlight and we go off on our own in search of branches. I find a shrub with some skinny twigs and start breaking them off.

  “Where did you grow up?” she asks.

  “Hard to say. I moved around a lot as a kid. By the time I was seventeen I had already been to ten different schools.”

  “Yikes. You’re a nomad.”

  I laugh. “Basically. So I don’t really have a hometown. Not anymore anyway.”

  “Why’d you move so much? Were you an army brat?”

  “Nope. My parents just . . . liked moving. And then they divorced, so I was constantly being shuffled back and forth between them.”

  “Well, you definitely weren’t raised in the country,” she says, pointing at the twigs in my hand. “Those’ll never light! We need something bigger.”

  “Sure they will!”

  “Nah, we’ve gotta keep going. Come on!” She grabs me by the hand and leads me further down the beach. Then we look up at the stars and I try to impress her with my knowledge of the constellations. Unfortunately I only know the Big Dipper, but I take a shot at a few others.

  “See that line of stars over there?” I say, holding up her arm and pointing at a section of the sky. “Those three right there? That’s Orion’s Belt.”

  “Are you sure?” she asks skeptically.

  I pause a long time. “No,” I finally say.

  We both start laughing as she jokingly pushes me away. Eventually we find a dead tree hanging over the edge of the beach and strip it for branches, victoriously returning to the fire pit with long pieces of wood held across our arms. Sadly, they’ve already gathered enough wood to get the fire started and the fire is huge, burning over four feet in the air. Anna and I look at each other and laugh again, dumping the excess wood to the side.

  The two of us sit together on one of the logs just as Tammy starts passing around a bottle of Jack Daniels. The musician from the bar has joined us too, and he’s strumming instrumentals on his guitar while Anna and I talk about our lives back home. She tells me she plays guitar too, and writes songs in her spare time.

  “Do you play in a band?” I ask.

  “Nope, by myself. I haven’t played any of my songs in front of people, though, ’cause they aren’t quite ready. But I’ve started recording.”

  “That’s cool. I used to play together with my friends, but I haven’t done that in a long time.”

  “What kinda stuff would you play?”

  “We did a lot of punk rock, mostly.”

  She puts her hands to her mouth to amplify the sound and says, “Boooo!”

  “What,
no good?”

  “No! You should be playing folk music.”

  “Hey, I like folk! Blood on the Tracks is one of my favourite records. And I love Neil Young. My old man used to put his albums on all the time. I can sorta play the harmonica too.”

  “Really? You should’ve brought one!”

  “Yeah, I should’ve. But I didn’t know I’d be at a bonfire at two in the morning.”

  “You gotta be prepared, man! But yeah, so folk music, I saw this guy named Harry Manx play at this place in Gatineau a few months back and it was amazing. Do you know him?”

  “No.”

  “He plays the slide guitar. It’s so good.”

  “Cool. I’ll check him out.”

  She smiles and everything falls silent.

  “So, why’d you stop playing?” she asks.

  “Ah, I got distracted with school and work and everything else. I mean, I realized I couldn’t make a career out of it, so it just didn’t seem all that important anymore.”

  Anna looks at me and blinks a few times before saying, with absolute sincerity, “I can’t imagine anything more important.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right! When you come visit me in Perth, we’ll jam together. Here.” She retrieves a pen from her pocket, removes the cap with her teeth, and then grabs my left wrist and begins scribbling her email address and phone number across my forearm. The pen digs deep into the skin and I try not to wince from the pain as she goes over each letter a second time. By the time she’s finished my entire arm is etched in black ink.

  “There,” she says.

  “How long are you in town for anyway?”

  “We’re leaving tomorrow morning. Going back to Perth for a couple days and then me and Emily are driving out to California.”

  “Really? What for?”

  “Just to check it out. I’ve never been to the West Coast before or seen the Pacific Ocean. We’re gonna go surfing and mountain biking. It’s gonna be great. You should meet us out there.”

  “Hmm. I don’t know if I can.”

  “It won’t cost much.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Why? Can’t get time off work?”

  “No, I’m still looking for a job.”

  “So how do you pay the bills?”

  “I’ve got a credit card and some savings.”

  “Huh. And what’re you gonna do when your savings run out?”

  I shrug my shoulders. “Party’s over, I guess.”

  She reflects for a moment and then says, “Well then you should definitely meet us out there.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve still got a lot of things to sort out back home. And my car is kinda dead. . . .”

  As I’m talking, the bottle of Jack Daniels is passed to me and I examine the label a moment. Instinctively, I want to take advantage of the free alcohol and drink as much as possible, but after last night I’m afraid, worried I might get horribly drunk and embarrass myself again.

  “Speaking of which, it’s getting late,” I say as I pass the bottle to Anna. “I’ve gotta get up early and find a mechanic. I should probably get going—”

  “You’re gonna leave us? Already?”

  “I’ve got your phone number. I’ll call you.”

  Anna stares straight into my eyes and then holds onto my arm and rests her head against my shoulder. “Come on, Ethan. Stay.”

  I don’t think anyone has ever asked me to stay before. Ever. In my entire life. People usually express some mild regret that I’m leaving, but they never put up a fight. Her emphasis on the word is mesmerizing. Stay.

  “You said you like Neil Young, right?” she asks, beckoning the musician across the fire to let her borrow his guitar. After strumming a few chords, she begins to play a song I don’t recognize, a song about childhood memories, and it feels as if she’s speaking directly to me. Her voice is like a whisper—it’s subtle and understated and haunting, and the lyrics conjure various images of the past. She sings about going to the fair, falling in love, becoming an angry adolescent, smoking that first cigarette and wanting to be alone—the gradual descent into adulthood. It makes me realize how much I miss my family, my friends, and feeling young and optimistic about the world.

  The song stays with me. I hear it over and over again in my mind as Anna and I wander along the beach until the sun begins to rise. She’s light-footed and graceful, guiding me along through the sand and over the rocks and hills. We visit other bonfires and greet the locals and search for more firewood in the tall grass to keep the fires burning throughout the night. Stripping down to our underwear, a few of us go swimming in the shallow lake and the water is warm and calm in the darkness. All of my worries and concerns about the car and money and Natalie seem to vanish and all that matters is the moment. Moments like these are what it’s all about. The day-to-day experience will always be a grind for me, but every once in a while I have a moment where everything feels okay, where I feel at peace. It might only happen once a week, a month, a year, and it may only last a few seconds, but they do happen, usually when I’m least expecting it. Those moments, however brief, those are the ones worth waiting for.

  It’s the early morning and Emily, Anna and I are walking across a parking lot underneath an orange sky. Our hair is wet and we’re carrying our shoes in our hands and a van full of people is waiting for them at the other end of the lot. Emily waves goodbye and runs off ahead of us so we can have a moment alone.

  “Do you need a ride?” Anna asks.

  “No, it’s okay. I can walk.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  She hugs me tightly and holds onto me for a long time. “Take care,” she whispers. “And come see us in California.”

  “I will.”

  “Hopefully your eye heals up by then,” she says with a smile. Then she kisses me on the cheek and turns around and jogs toward the van. The door closes and the engine hums and they drive away down the street and out of sight. I stand there dripping wet, holding my shoes, and then I look up at the morning sky and breathe it all in.

  Soon I find myself back inside my motel room, writing all of her information down in a notebook. I run a bath and soak in the tub and relive the entire night in my mind, staring down at the ink on my forearm and wondering if I’ll ever see her again.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Today, I don’t know what to do. I’m lying beneath the blankets, staring at the white ceiling with a few hours to go before I have to check-out of the motel. There’s no hangover, no headache, no stomach pain, but my car is still stalled on the side of a road two kilometres away. I walk to the lobby and try calling Doc again, but he still doesn’t answer, so I look through the phonebook and try to find a tow truck driver who can drag my car to a mechanic. Before making the call, though, I figure I should try to start it one more time. I put on a change of clothes, throw my backpack over my shoulder, and retrace my steps from the previous night along Kincardine Avenue. Soon I’m alone in the countryside again, and the Widowmaker is parked right where I left it.

  I unlock the door, toss my backpack inside and put the key in the ignition. I look upward and send a silent prayer to no one in particular, then turn the key and step on the gas. The motor sputters and whines. It screeches loudly. And then, to my surprise, it suddenly relaxes and settles into a sustained hum. I thank whoever answered my prayer, then shift it into gear and slowly press down on the pedal. The car moves sluggishly off the shoulder onto the road. The engine is shaking violently, but as soon I push it past sixty everything runs smoothly again. “Woo-hoo!” I shout, patting the dashboard to congratulate her for a job well done. I soon realize, however, that when I hit the brakes the engine begins to stall. I reapply the gas and push it past sixty and it runs normally again.

  The mechanic marked on my map is onl
y a few kilometers away. I drive down the country road, careful to keep my speed above sixty until I spot the garage. There are two broken cars on display on the front lawn and the place looks vacant. I pull into the parking lot and the car jerks to a complete stop. I walk into the garage and meet Gerry, an amicable old guy wearing a dusty grey jumper. He’s relaxing on a chair and reading a newspaper when he notices me. “Good morning! What can I do for you?”

  “Gerry, right? How’s it going?”

  “Good! How’re you doin’?

  “Not so good. My car’s fucked up.”

  “It is, huh? What’s wrong with it?”

  “Well, the engine keeps smoking for starters. It runs fine if I’m going over sixty, but any slower than that and it chugs and stalls.”

  “So you’ve gotta keep it above sixty, eh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Kinda like that movie Speed?”

  “. . . I suppose.”

  “And you’re like Sandra Bullock? Drivin’ that bus?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “I’ve always wondered what that’d be like, y’know? Drivin’ a big bus? Anyhow, I don’t know much about Cavaliers, to be honest with you. I’m more of a Ford guy. But bring her in here and I’ll see what I can do.”

  The car shakes and fumes as I slowly drive it into the garage. Gerry tells me, “It might be a while, but we’ve got some newspapers and magazines over there. Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

  “No thanks, I’m good. But is there a phone around here I can use?”

  “Yup, there’s a phone booth outside. You need change?”

  “No, I should be alright.”

  The booth at the side of the garage has seen better days: the door is broken, the paint is peeling off, and the yellow phone book attached by a chain has been soaked in rain and snow, rendering the pages virtually illegible. I pick up the receiver and listen to the automated voice system, surprised to learn that phone calls now cost more than a quarter, especially long distance calls. I grudgingly swipe my credit card through the yellow slot and dial a number—one I wrote in my notebook before I left the cottage. The phone rings four times before a recording answers: Hey! Natalie here. I’m sorry I can’t come to the phone right now, but if you leave your name and number, I’ll get back to you real soon. Thanks!