by Patrick Lane
Tom’s hands trembled on the wheel. He pulled the truck over and parked it under a twisted elm halfway down the hill. Thinking of Eddy like that left him with little to hold on to. He took a few long breaths, filling his lungs as if surfacing from deep water. He needed air.
The lawns were dried out, the night cool as he started to walk by the houses, stopping only to peer through a window now and then before moving on. He was invisible in the dark. At the last house on the block he stood and parted a tangle of branches. A woman was sitting in the dim light of a kitchen, no cup of coffee in her hand, no plate before her. The table was bare, but for a salt shaker spilled over. She was staring beyond it at a cold wood stove, no fire in it he could see. He watched her for a long time, but she didn’t move, her hands folded in her lap, nothing he could find in her blank and steady gaze. The wind stirred in the leaves as he lowered himself to his heels and like a pale criminal stole away under the trees.
He got back into the truck, put it in gear, and drove down the hill. At the bottom, the truck tires rumbled on the rails as he crossed the tracks and rolled to a stop by the curb. In front of him was the train station, its red brick walls streaked by coal smoke from the old steam engines. The ancient clock in the tower above the station doors measured no minutes, the hour hand frozen, pointed halfway between ten and eleven. He looked at the empty train platform and thought of the people who’d come to the valley. They were the men from the war, the ones who missed the marching into guns and the ones who’d marched through them. They were also the immigrants from Europe who wanted to put war behind them and find work in the valley, families who’d drifted north from the States, west from the prairie, and from the crowded cities of the East. Tom had seen them arrive when he was a boy, speaking languages Tom couldn’t understand, showing up confused in their strange clothing with their frail belongings or in dilapidated trucks piled high with mattresses and children, only to stand and stare in amazement at their dream, the high hills, the valley with its lakes, its green orchards and fields.
Across the street was the decrepit Mission Hotel with its cracked windows, its rooms empty now, their existence only to justify the licence for the beer parlour below where vagrant workers and old soldiers spent their treasured nickels and dimes, nursing their twenty-cent beers for hours until they were kicked out to sit shaking on the sidewalk.
Getting out of the truck, Tom stood in the crackle of railway cinders. The noise of men and women in the street outside the Okanagan Hotel on Main Street was a block away. There were only a few hours left before closing time. After that, Main Street would be mostly deserted except for a few abandoned vehicles parked slant. He’d seen them there, bits of paper and clothing strewn across the seats as if someone had searched through what little remained of their life, and finding nothing worth keeping or holding or wearing, left odd objects behind, a single baby shoe hanging by a lace from a rear-view mirror, a woman’s torn blouse on a back seat, a pair of logging boots, a glove.
9
the worn floor of the Okanagan Hotel beer parlour was smeared with dim light, clusters of tables jammed together, ashtrays smouldering, a nimbus of smoke hanging above a clutter of glasses, and the faces around the tables moving in and out of the shadows, a hand here and there reaching into the tepid glow to lift a beer or put it down, arguments and shouts. “Don’t Be Cruel” thundered from the jukebox against the wall, Elvis importuning his reluctant lover, the guitar eating into everyone’s imagined, broken heart. The wall that used to run through the middle of the room to separate single men from women had been long ago torn down, but the scar where the wall plate used to be was still there, the nails that held it bent over and beaten by hammers, nail heads gleaming, iron stubs in the floorboards grinding into shoes and boots.
The room was full, the women held close by watchful men. Waitresses, their beer trays held high by their shoulders, eased their way between chairs, stopping at table after table to place down yet another order of draft beers. Empties loaded, they picked up bills or coins from the pile in the middle of the table and made change, men keeping an eye on their quick hands, women watching their men, empty glasses clinking on the tray as the waitress moved on, a two-bit tip slipped into the side pocket of her apron, the dollar she’d filched back-folded around her little finger.
Tom sat perched on the edge of the tender’s chair at the end of the bar. Beside the barman’s knee was the stubbed-off baseball bat he kept for quelling fights, the handle ringed with black tape for grip. The clock over the bar said twenty after ten. Where the hell was Eddy? Tom surveyed the room, the men and women he knew from the bush, the back country, and the valley, all of them riding out the hours until closing time when they’d stagger out to the street and the parking lot to find their cars and trucks. Deals were going down among the men, a possible job at the fruit-packing plant, on a highway paving crew, or at one of the sawmills promised, talked about, considered, and rejected. That, and an impossible wife, mother, lover, or child being vilified, regretted, or damned, friends lied to, found and lost, moments left over, an hour or two remembered, then forgotten in the dregs of another glass. Men didn’t move from their chairs except to play a game of pool or head to the toilets. The women went in pairs for the same relief, staying there for what seemed forever, brushing their hair and repairing their faces, the gossip and the back-biting drifting between the cubicles. Tom watched Deb McVittie and Irene Scutts, both stocky brunettes with backcombed hair, traverse a complex trail through the maze, men nudging and winking at them as they passed by, the he said and then she said like broken glass stirred by a fork.
Across the room he could see Billy and another guy playing eight ball, the bet five dollars, two blue bills resting on the rag at the end of the table under a square of green chalk, Billy winning, given the sour look on the other player’s face, the way his hand with its skull-and-cross-bones ring gripped his blunt cue. Around them was the same old crowd, Weiner Reeves raising his glass to whatever corpse was lying in the basement of his father’s funeral parlour, Vera with Norman beside her, the side of his face taped over, his brown hair curling over his collar, talking too much to anyone who’d listen, his words garbled. Wayne was off to the side, as always, grinning eagerly at Joe who was sitting a table away ignoring him. Tom watched close as he wondered again at Wayne telling Harry about the house, Eddy walking into danger and not giving a damn. Nancy was sitting close to Billy, who was whispering in her ear, his cue by his side. Lester Coombs was nowhere to be seen. The ones who were there cast quick looks at Tom sitting over by the bar. They knew he only came in to look for Eddy.
Tom watched Nancy staring dumbly into the mirror on the wall. Joe was tilted back in his chair propped against the wall behind the pool tables, a full glass of beer in front of him. He was watching Billy win. Every few minutes Joe turned his head to Tom, his eyes opaque, nothing showing on his sallow face. Tom looked long at him, knowing Joe was deep into his and Eddy’s lives.
His fight with him at school had been years ago, but Joe remembered it, his grudge nursed through the years. Joe was staring through the crowd, his eyes cutting through the pall of blue smoke. Tom knew it was an old revenge Joe wanted, but not just for losing some long-ago fight at school. He couldn’t stand it that anyone had seen the weakness and fear in him, and it was something he’d never forgiven Tom for.
Joe had arrived in 1949 from the Ukraine, his father and mother bringing him over with them after the war, his name changing to Joseph. He came to school in gumboots and odd-looking clothes, older boys pushing and tripping him, laughing at his bowl-cut hair, his bare feet in rubber boots stinking with sweat in the hot classroom. Tom never went close to him except the once when he tried to help him up after Joe had been knocked down the fire escape. Joe had screamed at him to be left alone, but Tom wouldn’t listen, and Joe turned on him, the fight beginning. Tom remembered hitting Joe’s head over and over with a rock at the end, wanting to stop and not knowing how, Joe taken home bleeding
to the wrath of his father. Tom was dealt with by the principal, Mr. Bruno, a man who was supposed to have a silver plate in his skull from the war. He had stood in front of Tom spitting out his rage, flailing at Tom’s hands and wrists with a leather strap. He hated both Eddy and Tom, for what reason Tom had never understood, other than they were Elmer Stark’s boys from up Ranch Road.
Eddy had told Tom how Joe’s father used to punish him. He and Harry had watched Joe’s father take him out to the shed after church and make him kneel on dried peas while he read the Bible over him. One Sunday morning, Tom had hidden in the back alley and, peering through the fence palings, he had seen Joe there on his bare knees. As if he knew what Tom was thinking, Joe glanced at him now and turned away. He said something quietly to Billy, got up, eased through the tables like a slender blade, and went out the hotel doors into the street.
Tom heard hard laughter from some men nearby and saw a woman on her hands and knees under a table trying to find something, a fallen quarter, a lost earring, a purse mislaid or dropped. The man with her had his boots resting on her back, two others with him laughing at her squeal of outrage at the man holding her down. Nothing ever changed. The bar was there with its relief from boredom, its excuse for beauty. He got up and headed for the doors, people watching him go, Eddy Stark’s little brother, and he stepped out onto the sidewalk past the usual crowd of Indians and kids, crossing the street to sit on the steps of the Post Office.
From there the neon lights of the hotel hissed and sputtered as moths threw themselves helplessly against the cold glow of the glass tubes. Wherever Eddy was, at the old man’s house or shooting up in a cul-de-sac, nothing good could come of it. There’d been times he’d got involved with Eddy’s escapades, cartons of cigarettes and chocolate bars their booty, Eddy selling them for half-price in the alley behind the bar, but no more. When Eddy told him about killing Stanley’s dog the week before, Tom said he didn’t want to hear about it.
Across the street the interdicted Indians and penniless bums were begging beers from passing men. Teenage boys stood to the side of the hotel entrance, lights fluttering on their peach-fuzz cheeks, their skinny bodies promising the men they’d be someday. They were waiting for someone they knew, someone older to go in and buy them a case of beer, no questions asked. In the lot at the back were the cars and trucks they’d spent the summer fixing up or the newer ones borrowed from their fathers, some girl they’d brought into town in the front seat looking into the rear-view mirror and adjusting her makeup while her girlfriend struggled in the back seat, her nylon legs crossed, elbows guarding her breasts, the boy with her untiring as he made his moves toward what he thought love was.
And then he saw Joe come out of the alley behind the bar and move along the hotel to the edge of the neon glare. He stopped and stood in the flickering shadows, his narrow back against the wall, ironed pants, his bent knee cocked, a foot braced on the bricks, black boots shining. Tom thought of Joe in the kitchen at the party, the card game stopped, Tom’s knee in his back. He thought of that and how he knew Joe would travel from there all the way to the frozen playground dirt at school, the floor of his father’s shed where he knelt and listened to the wrath of Isaiah. Joe was looking right through whoever passed by, his eyes seeming to be fixed on the granite wall across from him. Josie Cameron, the grade-school teacher with the birthmark on her neck, came out of the doors into the night. Dishevelled, confused, she moved slowly, her hand tracing the wall of the bar as she trailed down the sidewalk, black purse dangling from her loose hand and bumping against her ankle. When she passed Joe, he nudged her, and she stepped wide around him only to reach out again to steady herself. At the end of the wall her hand waved as she leaned upon emptiness, staggering sideways and gone for a moment before reappearing, crossing the street, and vanishing among the caraganas in the park.
The doors to the bar crashed open, and two men Tom knew from the sawmill, the Cruikshank brothers, pushed out onto the sidewalk and walked off down Main Street, laughing, beer bottles in their hands. He wondered what time it was.
The granite was cool against his thighs. He leaned back on his elbows as he watched Joe pull away from the wall, cast a quick look at him, then saunter down the street. The door to the bar opened, a woman’s bare arm holding it there a moment, the sound of “Heartbreak Hotel” weaving out, Elvis plaintive, wailing, and then the arm pulled back and the door closed as if whoever had been holding it open had wanted the song to leave.
Someone shouted in the park. For a moment Tom thought it might be Joe, and then there were two sets of running footsteps, Josie Cameron appearing alone up the street, the sound of her shoes growing smaller and smaller, diminishing to nothing in the dark. He stared down Main, late cars pacing wheel to wheel, engines rumbling, Hollywood mufflers with their roar, girls talking to each other from open windows, their boyfriends urging other drivers toward the south road so they could race to the cliffs above Kalamalka Lake.
Tom listened to the cars careen down the block and then they were gone and the street was strangely quiet. He looked toward the station and saw Eddy and Harry coming up the sidewalk. They turned at the corner across from him and went into the hotel, the doors closing behind them. He got up off the steps and followed on his brother’s heels into the bar. Inside, he saw them heading toward the pool tables. Tom noticed people looking at them and whispering. Light danced around his brother, something electric flickering across his shoulders. It reminded him of the ghost lights he’d seen on rotted stumps in swamps. He could tell by the way Eddy moved that he was hungry for a fix. And Harry seemed jittery. He twitched as he walked, leaning down to one table or another, and talking fast, a whisper here, a handshake there. Eddy crossed to where Billy was shooting pool, Harry waiting by Billy’s table against the wall, picking up a glass of beer and chugalugging it. He put the empty glass down and peeled the paper from another Sweet Marie bar, taking a bite, all the while moving his head nervously. Tom wasn’t even sure Eddy knew he was there or, if he did, that he cared one way or another.
Billy took a long look at Eddy, racked his cue, and moved into the corner, Eddy beside him, standing there like he knew what he was doing. Their backs were to the room, their shoulders hunched. Money changed hands, a square of paper was slipped into Eddy’s pocket, and then he headed toward the toilets, Harry behind him.
Tom crossed the bar and caught the Men’s Room door as it was closing, following them down to the last stall.
So what happened? Tom said.
Eddy stood in a dark shadow against the wall, shaking his head. I can’t talk right now, Tom. I need to get fixed.
His brother’s hesitation gave him what he wanted to know. I told you something was wrong with this, Tom said.
Eddy took a shallow drag from a cigarette, smoke dribbling from his nose. Forget it, Tom, he said. I’m hurting here. Eddy held his hands loose at his sides in damp fists, salt beads on his forehead.
Tom turned and started to walk away.
Okay, okay, Eddy said. Jesus. We went in the back door, sure, but the place wasn’t empty. The son of a bitch was hiding in the living room. We never even saw him until he tried to shoot us with a bloody .308. Not once, but two times.
I won’t bother asking why you didn’t check the house out first, Tom said.
The fucking place was dark, okay? Eddy said.
We didn’t know he was in there, said Harry, unapologetic, just trying to keep it simple.
I shot the fucker, Eddy said. Tom just shook his head. Yeah, with the pistol I took off Lester Coombs.
Harry shoved his hands in his pockets. Shit, Tom, he said, what the hell did you expect us to do? Anyway, Wayne was right. There was money there.
Eddy looked over Tom’s shoulder. Fuck off, Joe, he said.
Tom turned and there was Joe standing at the urinal, running his hand over his hair. For a moment Tom wondered how he’d got back so soon from wherever he’d been outside. You heard what he said, Joe. Take off.
&
nbsp; Joe just stood there smiling as he pissed.
Tom put his hand on Eddy’s arm and leaned in close as Joe stepped down, shaking his cock and tucking himself in his pants.
I said get the hell away from us, Tom said. Don’t you see us talking here?
Joe pointed at Tom, a smirk on his lips. Fuck you too, he said, as he turned and went out the door. He didn’t look back.
You’re a mess, Tom said to his brother.
Eddy ignored him, turning to his friend. Harry?
Harry pulled open the toilet stall door and Eddy slipped into the cubicle, Harry and Tom blocking the door, a dull light above them shining down like a muddy moon. Tom could see the house they’d broken into, some old man on the floor with a bullet in him, and the two of them walking away without a thought for anyone.
What about the body, Harry?
Get out of the way, Harry said. Tom leaned back against the door, helpless as Eddy struggled out of his leather jacket, dropping it on the floor, slumping down. It’s okay, Harry said as he knelt between Eddy’s knees and undid the button at his wrist, pushing his shirt sleeve up. Knife scars appeared like snail slicks as Harry rolled the sleeve to Eddy’s shoulder. Eddy, rising from his slump, urgent now for the shot, lifted his hips and fumbled down inside his underwear, pulling out the cotton sack that held his works, his hands shaking. He slid the thin leather belt from his pant loops and tried to wrap it around his bicep, but the belt kept slipping in his sweat. The valley of Eddy’s elbow was blue with bruises. The closer he got to a fix, the more desperate he seemed to be.
Eddy laid his works on his clamped knees. His hands were shaking. He looked up and Tom stared at him, wishing he could call his brother back from the abyss he’d fallen into. Not me, Tom said. You know I can’t.