He was learning that it was common for their dealers to try and avoid paying what they owed, and it baffled him. The shopkeepers had received the product and sold it for a profit, yet still looked for ways around paying the Colonel his cut. The Colonel was a fair man and produced magnificent cheese. It made no sense that people would want to steal from him. After all the Colonel had done for Réjean, he felt a particular contempt for people trying to cheat him. Réjean had no patience for excuses, and no one made excuses like the cheese idiot. Since their first meeting and his well-placed fear of Réjean, his belief in his own charm was making him feel comfortable again, and he had reverted to his old ways of delaying payment with chatter. Réjean felt more and more agitated every time they went to see him.
The idiot’s envelopes had been light for the past few pickups, just a little each time, until the Colonel was officially unhappy and sent Réjean and JC to make it right. The Colonel kept himself away from the dealers, restricting his time to things he enjoyed. He had never met the cheese idiot, but when JC tried to describe his infuriating manner, the Colonel only looked at him with calm, expectant eyes. He didn’t like excuses either. If the idiot didn’t want to pay, his men would have to find a way to make him—with minimal violence. Although the Colonel sold guns as a side business to supplement the cheese and wine, he thought it gauche to use them on the job.
When they pulled up to the front door, the idiot was again talking with a customer. Réjean got a good look at him through the window and felt a new irritation bubbling up in his chest.
JC had scheduled this trip just before closing time so that there would be no customers around, in case things got serious. But the idiot was blithely detaining the customer and seemed to have no interest in closing.
When JC and Réjean walked through the door, he flew into gear.
“Heyyyyyyyyyy! These are some of the guys who make my fabulous cheeses! This must be so exciting for you,” he said to the customer, who had already slipped out the door. Réjean turned the lock, and the idiot fell mute. The silence permeated Réjean’s nerves, but he waited for a cue from JC, who lit a cigarette off his last one, crushed out the butt on the floor, and said, “I don’t need to tell you. And I’m not gonna.”
The idiot dove under the counter and emerged brandishing a cheese knife. “Don’t come near me,” he screeched, stabbing at the air with the knife.
He held the knife aloft for a moment from behind the counter, then made a break for the door. Réjean felt a sharp pain in his shoulder and looked into the terrified eyes of the idiot, who was struggling to pull the knife free.
Reflexively, Réjean picked him up by the throat and held him in mid-air, his legs scrambling. With one big hand around his neck, Réjean gave him a shake. Just one. The sound was like a hollow knock.
Réjean released the idiot, quickly reaching out to catch the body and support the head as it lolled gently back and to the right. He felt for a pulse and put his ear to the idiot’s mouth to check for air. Nothing. Réjean looked to JC, whose cigarette dangled from his motionless fingers.
Still capable of practicality, JC went first to the cash register and pounded buttons until the drawer opened up, then emptied it out and headed into the back office.
Réjean gathered up the body and held it close, still waiting for guidance from JC, who was rustling in the back room as the idiot cooled in Réjean’s arms.
JC came out stuffing handfuls of cash into World of Cheese bags and said, “Okay,” trying not to let on that this was the first dead person he had ever seen. “Okay, Serge. I’m…I know. That…wasn’t supposed to…”
Réjean looked around for somewhere to set down the body.
“Serge,” said JC.
Réjean knelt down, lay the body across his lap, and gazed into the dull eyes.
“Serge. Serge buddy, we gotta go.”
Réjean slid the body from his arms and crouched unsteadily beside it. “Chus tellement sorry,” Réjean said, partially hoping for a response as he straightened out the legs and crossed the hands on the idiot’s chest. He tried to straighten the head, too, but it lay impossibly tilted.
Agathe stood smoking, her eyes roaming the curves of the Silverado. It was her first day without Debbie, and she had no intention of taking the bus. Ever again. She stubbed out her cigarette in the can by the door, slipped her finger through the loop of the key chain, and swung the keys around into her palm. She remembered how Réjean used to constantly play with these keys, absently tossing them in the air or shaking them like dice. It used to drive her crazy, but she was beginning to appreciate the connection you could have with a set of car keys.
She climbed into the driver seat and snuggled her back into the soft velour of the upholstery, enforcing her own presence.
There was close to a metre between her feet and the pedals. She scrabbled underneath the seat until she found the handle and moved herself smoothly forward and back, adjusting to suit her body. She slid the big Chevrolet key into the ignition and gently brought her foot down on the pedal.
The Silverado wasn’t so different from Debbie’s Civic. She concentrated on the steps: clutch, neutral, key, release, clutch, first. The engine coughed once before kicking in, and the sound of it made the hairs on her arms stand up. It felt like she was bringing a dead thing back to life, which made her shudder. She remembered the heater and reached for the knob, savouring the familiar click. There was a strange smell to the air, like dusty fatigue, but it burned off after a minute and she relaxed completely into the truck’s warm cocoon.
She reached her hands out to the steering wheel and rested her head against the back of the seat.
Just underneath the heater was the radio, once a source of such irritation. She clicked it on and jerked back her hand at the sound of “Viens voir l’Acadie.” It was like the voice of a ghost. As she touched the dial to change it, she felt just a hint of sympathy for the song; it had no rhythm or build, no smashing crescendo, no torment, no sonofabitch, but it was pretty in an innocent way. She turned the dial.
There was buzzing, then talking, then static, buzzing, a classical orchestra, buzzing, talking, then a big, loud guitar. Like a machine gun. It was the Guess Who, singing about the American woman they wished would leave them alone. This one came after you just like the barracuda. She turned it up, filling the truck with noise.
Once on the road, the Silverado sped smoothly through the blowing snow, lifting her miles off the ground so that she was looking down at the other cars. When she swished by them in the passing lane, she imagined they were the little fish and she was the barracuda, devouring them one by one.
Agathe cut the engine outside of Stereoblast and again relaxed into the upholstery, leaving the key in the ignition for the radio. The wind whipped around the Silverado, blowing in swirls around the parking lot.
She lit a cigarette and reached for her tea, which was wedged between the seats in one of her own kitchen mugs; she made better tea than Dingwall’s, and the drive-thru didn’t feel right without Debbie. As she contemplated the storefront, she snuggled back deeper and rested her sneakered foot alongside the gearshift. The inside of the Silverado was warm as a bed. This was the kind of storm where people stayed home from work, and as much as she would have preferred that, one of the unexpected results of driving the Silverado to work was that it created a sort of bridge between the house and Stereoblast, making her feel almost like she hadn’t left home. Not having to wait for Debbie at the bus stop had given her more time this morning, so that she could sit in the truck awhile longer before having to go into the store. She didn’t feel like getting out right away.
The song on the radio faded out and an electronic keyboard piped in. Agathe laughed and turned it up as Sheriff told her they’d never needed love like they needed her.
As the song filled the cab, she closed her eyes and really listened. Even though it was a slow one, she was beginning to think this was a good song. And it really did pick up toward the end. Sh
e liked the athletic key change, and the way the drums announced the Baby. She listened to the whole thing as her cigarette extinguished from inattention. When she rolled down the window to pitch it, the wind raged in and she leaned out to feel the snow pelting her face. The walk from the truck to the store was fewer than thirty paces. One warm door to another. She hopped down and strode through the storm and through the front doors of Stereoblast.
Tony and Wood were standing in eerie silence near the cash, each listlessly propped on a Mandio. Neither looked up. A strand of Tony’s hair fell forward from behind his ear and hung there, untucked.
Although she missed Debbie powerfully, a reserve of happiness cushioned Agathe from falling too low. What Debbie had given her fortified her like a new set of senses. Debbie had taught her how the sound of the E Street Band was the sound of Clarence Clemmons playing a little bit, all the time, even when you thought he wasn’t. She’d taught her how Eric Clapton is called Slowhand because his fingers barely move even when he’s playing something complicated. She had showed her how the verb tense of the choruses in “Had Me a Real Good Time” change throughout the song from when Rod Stewart shows up at the party to when he gets asked to leave, to show that time is passing. Debbie’d taught her how syncopation flips the song over and plays the opposite beat, and how a seventh sounds like the sun is bursting through the clouds. From the outside, Agathe couldn’t have understood what those songs were made of; now that she was on the inside, she knew exactly what made the army man point and sing.
“We’re closing today,” said Tony. “It’s the storm.”
It was not the storm; it was Debbie. Wood’s heartsick expression said as much.
What Agathe really wanted to do with a day like this was go for a drive, a good, long one, and shout along to the radio. But the storm was already bad and was expected to last for days. Un ice storm. She needed to stock up and get home—and when she pictured herself at home, warm, with tea, she remembered Sondage, sitting on the kitchen table. But an evening filling out a survey somehow didn’t hold the same excitement anymore. Perhaps she would draw a picture. She also thought what she might do on a day like this was something she hadn’t done since Réjean: she would cook. She would make a meal like the ones she used to make for him and fill the house with the smell of love. And she would eat it all. Herself. She would make a rappie pie, because it was fussy and would take hours, first cooking the chicken, then grating the potatoes and squeezing the liquid out of them in a cloth bag until they attained that glossy consistency. She might even get herself some beer.
She headed back toward the front doors of the mall, passing Crazy Yellow Guy. He was hard to miss even with the poor visibility. With the exception of seeing him at the Whisky Mak, he’d become a welcome omission from her day since she’d started taking her breaks with Debbie rather than at Hickey’s. When she approached, he didn’t even try to open the door. He just stood there. He looked different. Narrower. It was like he was fading away. He must have been a real person before he went crazy. He must have had a family. She reached past him for the door.
The stock at Colpitt’s had been thoroughly picked over, but she still managed to get a chicken, dinner rolls, a bag of potatoes, and onions.
She swooshed back out the front door and was struck by the gale. Crazy Yellow Guy was now curled up in a fetal position on the sidewalk, clutching his knees. Agathe looked around at the shoppers heading for shelter, then down at him, huddled on the ground, his back rounded like an armadillo. No. Not like an armadillo. No, what he unmistakably resembled, and what she hadn’t devoted a guilty thought in some time to, was a brown bat curled up in the bottom of his cage. She set down her groceries, flipped up the collar of her coat, and turned him over. He opened his eyes just barely, then wider, before they rolled back in his head. Agathe hefted him over her shoulder and found him light, as though perforated. As she carried him to the truck, the Colonel’s gun fell unseen from its home in his yellow pocket and into the slush.
Two weeks later, Tony would be murmuring to himself when he’d kick the gun out from a snowbank and across the icy lot. He would chase it under a Pontiac 6000. On his knees, the side of his face on the ground, he would lay his hand on the cold metal, pull it out, and say, “Wow.”
The first thing Martin noticed when he woke up in the thick dark was the scent. It was like waking up inside another person, and the lingering musk of aftershave alerted him that that person was Réjean.
Martin was in a bed, covered by his own weight in quilts and scratchy blankets. The wind howled outside, whipping sheets of precipitation against the window. His muscles were rubbery, and lifting the bulky covers was a chore, but when he realized what he was wearing, he sank back on the pillows, dizzy. Even in his weakened state, he knew it was Réjean’s shirt—although on Martin it was more like a nightgown. It wasn’t just the smell, he knew the plaid and texture from memory. It felt like Réjean. As he drifted, inhaling deep lungfuls, Agathe appeared at the door in the halo of an emergency candle.
“Aie, you awake?” she said.
“Oui,” he said.
She disappeared, reappearing a moment later with a buttered white dinner roll. Martin watched her hazily as she nudged her hip in next to him on the bed. Dazzled by her closeness, he scuffled over as best he could to accommodate her. The warmth of her flank radiated through him as she placed the roll in his hand and held up the candle to watch him.
“Mange donc, là. T’es starving,” she said.
He couldn’t remember the last thing that had passed through his lips. It could have been a month ago. He remained ambivalent to food, but would have eaten a boot if she had brought him one. He lifted the roll to his mouth and nibbled as she watched gravely. In the candle’s glow, he was struck by the protuberance of her eyes. His stomach gripped with refusal as he forced down the last buttery bite and chewed industriously, dipping his head to swallow.
She studied him with a scientific curiosity, as one might a bug or a rock. “As-tu un nom, toi?”
“Martin,” he said. “Je m’appelle Martin.”
“Martin,” she said, pronouncing it the way Réjean did, with the emphasis on the last syllable. No one had spoken his name since he’d last seen Réjean, and he had to stop himself from asking her to say it again.
Satisfied, she left the room, the red smudge of the flame lingering in the blackness. He could hear her moving down the hall, the clatter of dishes. She returned a moment later with a giant plate of rappie pie, which she set down in his lap before reassuming the warmed spot next to him on the bed. Martin’s esophagus ached. The roll alone had been more than he could handle, but he would not refuse her. She had brought him a spoon, perhaps unsure what he might do with a fork. He dug into the mountain of chicken and glistening potato and steadied himself with his other hand. He had to focus intently on chewing, sifting and settling the flavours on his tongue, gulping it down and, crucially, keeping it down, not distracting himself with stealing glances at her in the candlelight.
She watched him calmly as he stuffed down two heaping spoonfuls before his insides forced him to stop. He squeezed his eyes shut. He had been fading away bit by bit, week by week. The padding that protected his insides had melted away and he was nothing now but thin, empty skin. The introduction of food kicked into gear systems that had been closing down, and there was chaos in his innards.
With deep regret, he placed the spoon on the plate and handed it back to her, shaking his head. “Je m’excuse,” he said.
“Ben, on fait ce qu’on peut,” she said, not even treating him like an Anglophone. She firmly patted down the bedding around him, poking it under on all sides as he lay still, blissful and obedient. Once he was mummified, the covers up to his chin, she turned off the light and disappeared with the plate.
The room started to swirl as he gazed up at the ceiling. He pulled the covers over his head, hoping the darkness would stop the spinning, but it only made it worse. He was drunk with food. He took s
hallow, panting breaths and concentrated on not throwing up or passing out. But even as his insides sounded frenzied alarms, Martin at last felt fully, resoundingly solid.
Over the next six days, the town was besieged with rain, wind, and sub-zero temperatures that glazed every surface with a sheet of ice and made it nearly impossible to leave the house without a pair of skates. Power lines froze and the weight of the ice knocked them to the ground. Agathe was grateful for the gas stove that enabled her to continue cooking for Martin as he recovered. She slept next to the fireplace, waking up every few hours to pile on more wood, check on Martin, and tuck him in tighter. She sat with him as he slept and watched his face for fresh colour and the benefits of her care.
The first few days Martin slept straight through, waking only when Agathe would nudge him to eat. For someone who was crazy, he didn’t act very crazy. In fact, he only behaved oddly one time, when he was finally well enough to sit up and she had arranged an area for him in the living room by the fireplace, tucked him in under three quilts, and brought him a cup of tea with cream and a date square. He gave her his usual look of apologetic gratitude and was about to bite into the date square when he stopped it halfway to his mouth. His shoulders sank, and he looked tenderly at the square and squeezed it gently so a little of the filling crept out. Still holding it, his frame began to shake. He cried quietly while she sat by. He placed the date square back on its plate, sat straight up, looked her in the face, and took a breath to speak, then glanced back down at the plate, shook his head, and set the plate on the coffee table. Agathe went to the kitchen and returned with a pad of paper, a pencil, and a deck of cards.
“Voila, là,” she said. “On joue le gin rummy.”
I Am a Truck Page 11