Again, wiping his forehead, he looked up at the sun. “It takes roughly about eight minutes for the light and heat from the sun to reach our little planet Earth. Over ninety million miles away.” Did I mention he taught science?
“What you’re feeling, the heat that is, is the infrared radiation, not to be confused with the ultra-violet radiation. It’s a shorter wavelength on the electro-magnetic spectrum.”
“I remember. We went through this ten years ago.”
He scratched his head, thinking. “Is that how long it’s been? Time sure does pass. I used to teach Wilson, eh? Good student. Bright kid.”
I stepped up my pace, uncomfortable at the awkwardness of the discussion. “I know. You told me already.”
“He wanted to be an astronomer, Wilson did. Fascinated by cephoid variables, pulsars, binary systems, all the wonders in the heavens. Dreamed of it, he told me.”
This view of Wilson was what I remembered of him. He had always had a dreamy quality. And I guess people who wanted to be astronomers needed it. I remembered he used to love going out on the family boat, anchoring a couple of hundred feet off the shore, then spending hours looking up at what I thought was the sky. But now I guess it was really the stars. Hell, everybody around here has done that at one point or another. Out on the lake, the stars look close enough to reach, and I suppose Wilson wanted to touch them.
I smiled at the memory. “Wilson probably would have made a great astronomer.”
“No, he wouldn’t have.” Mr. Dieter made it sound so matter-of-fact.
“But if he liked that kind of stuff, and was smart … ”
Mr. Dieter shook his head. “I think he got most of it from all those science-fiction shows. Astronomy is hard work, very hard. You have to be committed. Plus, Wilson’s maths weren’t good enough. They were okay, but he wouldn’t have been able to grasp all the physics and trig necessary to be a half-decent astronomer.”
“You told him this?”
“Definitely. I liked him. Thought he had a bright future ahead of him. In something he could understand and handle. Better to save him the heartbreak now, than have it complicate his future. I like to encourage my students, but I like to show them reality too. Let’s face it, not a lot of want ads for astronomers. You have to be exceptional. How many great astronomers can come from the Otter Lake Reserve? We’ll, we’re almost there, eh?”
At the graveyard, Wilson was lowered into the ground, in the opposite direction of the sky he had found so inviting. On the way back to the church for the reception, everybody seemed more animated. More conversations, louder voices, a few more smiles and even some laughter. The downcast mood had been put to rest along with Wilson.
The next day, I found myself in Paul’s office, seeking closure I guess. The corner of the poster that had proved difficult for Paul a few days earlier now held a gold-coloured tack. Paul was staring at it. The room stank of cigarettes.
“Well, what did the autopsy report say?” I hovered in the doorway.
Paul took a drag of his cigarette. “Just like we thought. They found water in the lungs. Wilson Blackfish was overcome by gasoline fumes, lost consciousness, fell into a water-filled ditch and drowned. That’s the story. That’s the end. And I hate it!”
He threw the cigarette at the poster, making it explode in a shower of sparks. Paul was still hurting, feeling powerless.
I felt the same, but for a different reason. “Paul, if it makes you feel any better, Wilson didn’t drown.”
Paul raised his head above his own impotence, confusion splayed across his face.
“Uh, yes he did. The report … ”
I shook my head, too confident in my knowledge.
“He didn’t drown. He suffocated.”
Paul looked more confused. I closed the door behind me, letting him wrestle with what I’d told him. It was getting late and I wanted to get to the marina before it closed. The weather report had said the skies would be clear that night.
Strawberries
“So, what will we have next?” I asked.
We’d been asking each other that question for the last two hours and it still brought deep thought and even deeper study of the drink menu. As was our yearly ritual, Joby Snowball and I were blowing our first paycheque of the season on absolutely nothing worthwhile. It was a time-honoured tradition we loyally kept. I had just started a new job for the summer at the band office, occupying specifically the well-respected title of Day Camp and Regatta Coordinator for all the little ankle-biters of the village. It was work on the reserve, therefore no income tax to worry about, and it was close to home so I could save even more money for my next year of college.
Joby’s paycheque was different from mine. We had grown up together, played together, chased girls together, and even caught a few together, but in many ways we had drifted apart. I did the collegiate thing while he had remained on the reserve being a working man, doing odd jobs, mostly seasonal things. During the winter he’d plow and sand the roads, put up storm windows, things like that, while I was off in the city eating food he’d never heard of. But every summer I’d come home, he’d still be there, and we’d try to pick up where we left off.
This summer, Joby was groundskeeping for both the baseball diamond and the cemetery—life and death, cheering and quiet, action and peace. In many ways, the contradictions in his job reflected our relationship.
That is how we found ourselves sitting at Charley’s, an upscale bar in downtown Peterborough. I had gotten my first paycheque that day, not nearly enough money for looking after two dozen little Indians who evidently believed in human sacrifice. Meanwhile, Joby had received his the day before, and, despite tremendous temptation, it was still firmly lodged in his back pocket. Until today, that is.
When we were teenagers, we’d spend our first cheque of the season on movies, comics, toys, food and various other things of no great or lasting importance. And like clockwork, our mothers would chew us out for wasting our money, foolishly believing their lectures would have some lasting effect.
Gradually, as we got older, our tastes changed. The comic books evolved into other magazines of questionable quality. If our mothers had ever found out about some of the magazines we spent good money on, we would have received more than a lecture. But that was a long time ago.
“Well, what do you think?” It was Joby’s turn to ask the famous question.
I couldn’t decide. We were having a drinking contest. A sophisticated one of sorts. I was showing off, ordering a variety of interesting yet bizarre drinks I had learned about during my brief excursion into the equally interesting and bizarre Caucasian world. Joby on the other hand was matching me exotic drink for exotic drink, having watched many a soap opera and movie. We had just finished a Vodka Martini, shaken, not stirred. I believe Joby had picked that up in a movie for the same reason he referred to his pickup truck as his “Austin Martin.”
We had been there two hours but we weren’t drunk by any measure. Joby was a beer person through and through, and I still had an affinity for rye and Coke, the mix I was weaned on. So with all these new liquors and liqueurs, we were taking it slow and carefully, as all scientists do with their experiments. So far we had also tried White Russians, Black Russians, Brandy Alexanders, Sea Breezes, Singapore Slings and Manhattans. We prided ourselves in “how international” we were being.
Now the ball was in my court. “How about a strawberry daiquiri? I hear they’re pretty good.”
Joby stiffened like I’d slapped him. “The hell they are. My strawberry days are over. Pick another one.”
“What do you got against strawberry daiquiris?”
He looked at me for a moment. I could tell he was remembering. Not the kind of memory that follows a story line or pattern, the sort you see in movies, but the kind that brings back a random series of emotions and experiences. Sort of like having a pail of water suddenly dumped on you when you heard the right word or saw the right image. Judging by the look on Joby�
�s face, the water was cold.
“You were lucky,” he said, “all through high school you got to work at the band office. Just ten minutes from home, air conditioning, and a chair to boot. You forget what I did all those summers.”
Then I remembered. The fields.
“For three goddamned years I picked strawberries. I’d come home with my hands stained blood red, my back ready to break from bending over all day. A sixteen-year-old shouldn’t have back problems, it ain’t right. When I turned seventeen, I swore I’d never pick another strawberry in my life, or eat one, or look at one, or even think of one.”
That’s the way it used to be when we were young. Local strawberry farmers would send in these huge flat-bed trucks to our reserve to pick up the Indian kids to pick strawberries. We used to be like those migrant workers except we weren’t migrant. We lived on the edge of the fields.
The rookies would gorge themselves on the berries for about the first three days or so. But the novelty would soon wear off with the knowledge that, since you got paid by the pint, you were actually eating your salary. Picking strawberries was on the low end of the totem pole when it came to jobs. Most of my uncles and aunts, at one time or another, picked strawberries. They referred to it as “paying your dues.” But by the time my and Joby’s generation arrived, Pick Your Own Strawberries were coming into vogue for all the yuppies from the city, all that health and get back to nature stuff they like so much. So Joby was part of the last group of kids to be hired in our area to hit the fields.
“One time my sister had her room wallpapered with pictures of that toy character, I think her name was Strawberry Shortcake. I coulda killed her. There were strawberries all over her room,” he was getting excited. “All over it. I think that was her way of making sure I never went into her room. I had nightmares for a week. Andrew, to this day, I’ve never eaten a strawberry or even touched one and I hope I never do. To me they’re the Devil’s own food. Now for God’s sake, pick another drink.”
Trying to be sympathetic (it’s remarkably easy to be sympathetic in a bar), I ordered a Grasshopper. We were quiet for the next little while, the spirit of our adventure having been spoiled by the berry from Hell. We tried to recapture the fun of our outing, but the moment had been lost to a bad memory. We had a few more drinks, then went our separate ways. As he walked away, I realized how much I missed the closeness we had shared as kids. No amount of this new age “male bonding” can ever come close to two fourteen-year-olds trying to convince our day camp counsellors to go skinny dipping with us. And I couldn’t even swim.
It was two days later that I heard the news. There would be no more drinking contests, no more summer reunions, no more berry horror stories. Joby Snowball was dead. He’d been hit by a produce truck at the Farmer’s Market just outside of Peterborough. His mother, Winnie, always used to send him in to do some early shopping for her.
The village went into shock. I went into shock. At a very important time in my life, he had been my best friend. Nothing could take that away from us. Life would go on for me, but not for Joby.
The wake was held two days later. I went to see my friend, lying there so peacefully, wearing the scarlet-coloured tie he always hated but occasionally had to wear. His head was framed in red satin. He looked healthier and wealthier dead than he ever did alive.
Afterwards, we all went to his mother’s place. Everybody was meeting there and bringing food, something I could never understand since nobody at these things ever felt like eating. All I could find to bring was a bucket of chicken from you-know-where. Poor Winnie, she never slowed down for a minute. Playing the perfect hostess, she refused to let anybody help her as she put out dishes, set out the food, even washed the odd set of dirty dishes. My aunt said it was her way of dealing with the grief.
I looked across the table ladened with food. There were about thirty people in the house, and everybody had brought something edible, so the table was fairly sagging under the weight. Everywhere there was food of every possible description: casseroles, salads, chicken, even apple and, yes, strawberry pies.
I sometimes wonder about the irony of the universe, but, as my grandmother would say, who am I to decide what’s ironic? That’s for God and English teachers to decide.
That night I ate my fill, somewhat guiltily enjoying the strawberry pie, but my perpetually dieting sister reassured me that food and guilt always go together. Pretty soon I left for home. I had to get up very early the next morning to fulfil an obligation and do my last favour for Joby.
Since Joby had looked after the cemetery, and then died, it left a problematic vacuum. But in my community it was considered an honour, albeit a sad honour, to be asked to dig a grave for a particular family member or friend. So, oddly enough, Joby had never dug an actual grave—for which he was very grateful. That is why I found myself at the grave site, shovel in hand, and a lead weight in my heart.
It took me a moment to psych myself up. This is not a thing one normally learns about in school. I’d dug many holes in my life, but none eight feet by four feet. But digging that hole, lifting shovel after shovel of heavy earth, gave me the opportunity to think about Joby, all the paycheques we had planned on cashing in the future, and all the fancy drinks there were left to discover. Something again made me think about the food at last night’s wake, and Joby’s consuming hatred of strawberries. I thought about my grandmother too, and wondered if God had a sense of humour.
A little over three hours passed before I finished. Digging a grave in a ground moraine is a real pain; every six or seven inches there was a rock, sometimes a huge mother of a rock, sometimes a whole bunch of rocks fighting to get on your shovel. But I managed to pull it off, with only three pulled muscles, although I barely had enough time to get home for a shower and a change of clothes before the funeral. Joby had always hated suits and he was being buried in the only one he had ever owned, the one his mother had bought him for his high school graduation eight years before.
The funeral went well, as well as funerals can go. It was a good turnout—his mother appreciated all the extra mourners. The minister said some nice words about a boy who never went to church. As Joby lay quietly in his coffin, I remembered that he was slightly claustrophobic, too.
It took me less then a third of the time to fill in the grave than it took me to dig it. The only company I had was the lonely sound of rocks and dirt hitting the wooden casket, and even that gradually disappeared. Before long I was patting the dirt down solidly but gently. I stood there for a moment, looking at the grave site, saying a quiet goodbye to my friend, and coming to a realization.
God did indeed have a sense of humour. As I turned to leave, I was careful not to step on some tiny white flowers, no bigger than a dime, which littered the area around the grave.
Wild strawberry season was just around the corner.
The Art of Knowing Better
The birds were quiet now. The last call of the crow and cry of the robin had disappeared with the setting sun. I could tell that the wind, which had died down during the early part of the evening, was picking up once more, rustling the trees and making the smaller ones bow down to the moon. Another evening in Otter Lake.
Outside my room, the summer insects buzzed and crawled across the window screen, trying to get at the light that burned above me. I turned it off. I wanted the quiet of this summer night, as I listened to the village wind down. Another day to be knocked off the calendar. The universal rituals that end all days around the world vary little, even in this small Ojibway community. Everything was finishing as it normally did.
On my bed in my mother’s house, I lay there waiting for the next link in the unalterable chain of evenings that make up my Otter Lake life. Without it the day couldn’t finish. Not officially, anyway.
Except he was late this evening. Not too late, but later than normal. Ever since I could remember, since we had moved into this house, even during the winter when the snow would muffle—but not quite complete
ly hush—his footsteps, this would be the beginning of my morning and the end of my day. Tonight I wondered if maybe the wind was carrying away the familiar shuffle of his feet on the dirt road, that he might have already gone by, hidden by Mother Nature.
In the larger scale of life, the sound of this old man’s footfalls wasn’t all that important to me. I mean, I barely knew the man. But this was like the old clock my grandmother owned when we lived in the old house. Like old Tommy Hazel, it had its place. The clock was an ancient thing, ornately carved in a cheap and gaudy way. It sat on a mantle high above the living room and had to be wound twice a day with a funny-looking key. My grandmother would always curse that it kept losing eight minutes every twelve hours.
As a young child, I remember looking all through the house for those missing eight minutes, not knowing where they could have been lost. The more time the clock lost as the weeks and months passed, the more I knew was waiting to be found. Every time she turned that key, I was sure I could see eight tiny minutes fall from the old clock into a crack in the floorboards directly underneath.
And still it sat, looking down on us, ticking away loudly. As a kid, I always imagined I could see a face—not a pleasant one—peering out from the carved and shadowed wood. It was watching me, angry about those missing eight minutes getting away. At night I could hear its ticking echo through the house, bouncing off one wall and then another until it ended up on my bed: tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Then I would fall asleep.
When we moved to the new house–modern, with electricity, indoor plumbing and a television—the first thing I noticed was no more ticking. The house was silent except for a long-distant hum somewhere buried in the walls. Without the ticking from the angry clock, I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned for three nights until I did sleep, however fitfully, from sheer exhaustion. It was months before the electrical humming would allow me to sleep soundly. Even then I would lie awake, consciously straining to hear the ticking.
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