We drove along the highway, the tires making that haunting sound on the pavement, cigarette smoke drifting around; a fancy-dressed Italian man a few rows up turned on his little overhead light and was reading a book. I preferred to daydream though, just stare out the window and think about all the things ahead of me. I got out my wallet and went through it, item by item. Birth certificate, school card, fifteen dollars in small bills. E.K.’s envelope. From the inside flap where you’re supposed to keep your driver’s licence, I fished out a picture of me and Scarlet. It was the photo of us together in the booth that night down at the Exhibition. She was wearing a white shirt and a handkerchief around her neck, looking straight into the lens. I looked at it, I even smelt it. It had that Boucheron perfume on it, and it made my stomach wobble a little bit. I still loved her all right and when she heard about my trip who knows? And then, in spite of myself, I had this long daydream where someone phones her in Quebec, she’s in boarding school and she takes the phone call in the basement, I can see her in her tunic, her hair in a pony-tail. It doesn’t suit her, makes her chin look weak. Her skin looks a little yellow in my daydream. But still. Her shirt is open, it’s a button-down and I can see her neck. That little dip in her throat. I can see her on the phone, someone is telling her I ran away. Really, she says, no kidding, he ran away in the middle of the night? He went to Texas? And then she goes back to her room, thinking what an adventurer! And then I’m looking out a window in Forest Hill, I’m looking up Dunvegan Road, it’s snowy, just like in the Christmas cards and I see Mitch walking up the street, a little brown figure against the snow. And beside me, in the daydream, is Scarlet. We’re sitting in this big house, it’s very still, it smells great, like a Christmas tree and presents and parties downstairs. Just the way a house smells at Christmas. And the two of us are sitting there while the snow falls outside and you can’t hear a thing through the windows.
I was thinking to myself that I was going to go travelling far, far away, maybe all the way to China, that I’d be gone for years and years and then, just when everyone figured I was dead and gone, I’d turn up again. Maybe I’d go to the seven wonders of the world, get a piece from each one, a stone or a blade of grass, and bring it back to Scarlet. That way she’d have to love me again.
Or maybe I’d volunteer for the French Foreign Legion. Fight in a war on the other side of the world; come back a hero. That way they’d have to forgive me for running away. I’d give a speech at my old school as the honoured guest. Look out over awhole roomful of kids and start with something like, “I remember when I used to sit out there.”
No, on second thought, I wouldn’t say that. Any time someone says that they always go on to bore you. They may remember sitting out there but they don’t remember what it was like.
And on and on and on the bus went into the night.
Finally I felt us slow down, you could hear the engine whine in a most sorrowful fashion, and I looked out the front window and there, a hundred yards down the road, the border crossing, all lit up with signs and booths and flashing yellow lights and cars lined up.
“Would you get your paperwork ready, please,” the driver said.
We pulled up alongside a booth, the doors opened and a man in a uniform and a hat came in. He started down the aisle toward me and I got so freaked out I wondered if I was going to just croak when he talked to me. I couldn’t get my banging heart under control. He stopped for a moment, talking to three Indian guys near the front. Suddenly they got up and left the bus. I watched them go into a brick building, still clowning, like those guys who get thrown out of class all the time. The trip to the principal’s office doesn’t bother them a bit. They’re used to it.
Then he was talking to the Italian in front of me, me feeling so uptight it was like I was wearing a mask and someone was tightening it from behind. Feeling like in another second I was just going to jump up and turn myself in, the tension being worse than anything that could happen, when he came over to me.
“Good evening, sir,” he said.
“Good evening.”
“And where are you going tonight?”
“Buffalo,” I said.
“That’s a good spot. Business or pleasure?”
I allowed myself a little laugh at his joke.
“Definitely pleasure.”
“And how long will you be there?”
“About a week.”
“Do you have any luggage?”
“Yes. A suitcase.”
“And who will you be staying with?”
“I have a friend there.”
“What’s his address?”
“He’s picking me up at the bus station.”
“What’s his name?”
“Ainsworth. Dick Ainsworth.”
He paused for a minute.
“Do you have any identification, sir?”
I gave him my student card and my birth certificate. He handed me back the card. He studied the certificate for a second.
“How old are you?”
“I’m sixteen.”
For some reason, he turned the certificate over, looked on the back. He tapped it against his thumbnail. He looked up and down the aisle.
“Would you follow me please, sir? And bring your luggage.” When we got inside, there was just me and the Indians. One of them caught my eye and came over.
“Got a smoke, buddy?”
I gave him one and then a couple more for his pals. I didn’t want any problems but I didn’t want to sit near those guys. They were trouble and I didn’t want the customs guy thinking I was with them. In a little while he called me into a small green office. A metal table, two chairs, a picture of President Johnson in a plastic frame.
“That’s a lot of luggage for one week, Mr Albright.”
“Well, I’m an inexperienced traveller. I probably packed too much.”
“Your parents know you’re making this trip, Mr Albright?”
“Oh yes.” I said it with a little laugh like we were all in on the joke. But he didn’t smile.
“So if I gave them a call, they wouldn’t be surprised to hear from me?”
“No, not at all.”
“And you say your friend Dick Ainsworth is going to pick you up at the bus station?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t we give him a call, have him pick you up here?”
“Well, I don’t think that would be very nice,” I said, like he was spoiling a good party or something. But needless to say that didn’t bring him around.
“I don’t know his phone number.”
“Why don’t you go over there and see if you can look it up.”
Outside his office, just across the hall, were a couple of pay phones with phone books hanging from chains. I heard the Indian guys. They were jostling around in their seats like kids. Pushing each other. Their hair, which was black, was parted in the middle and fell all the way to their chests. They were very skinny, all of them in black jeans and black jean jackets. I wondered why they hadn’t gone into the office first.
I went over to the phones and opened the phone book. I found a Dick Ainsworth, a few of them actually, and for a second, I could feel that fizzing again, and I thought I’d call one of them, explain my situation over the phone, persuade him to come down and get me.
“Listen,” I’d say, “you don’t know me but I’m a nice kid andI’m in a bit of trouble here and I was hoping you could help me.”
It was a bad idea. It was going to get me fucked. Why would a complete stranger come all the way down here in the middle of the night and smuggle a kid across the border? And if they caught me lying to them, then they’d really throw the book at me. They’d take me back to school in fucking chains. Thanks a lot, Scarlet, now look at the jam you got me in.
I wandered back into the guy’s office. He was doing a ton of paperwork. He looked up and sort of raised his eyebrows, like he was going through the motions of wanting to know what happened.
“He was
n’t there,” I said.
He wasn’t very surprised.
“Wait outside.”
I went back and sat down. I heard the bus start up; a few moments later it pulled out. Just me and the Indian guys in a bright room.
We sat around for hours. I caught the customs guy’s eye; I shook my head and smiled, like I was saying, if it wasn’t for you, everything’d be cool. He didn’t smile back. He was like a machine, that guy, just the worst sort of fellow to come across.
After awhile he came out of his office. Handed me a form, told me to sign it.
“What’s happening?” I said.
“You’re going home. And if you try to sneak back across this border, you’ll be arrested.”
We went outside in the dark and got in a bus. Half-full of sleeping people. Stuffy smelling. And then we started out. The Indian guys had run out of gas; they leaned against each other like busted deckchairs. I looked at my watch; it was five-thirty. By breakfast,they’d know I was gone. Arthur Deacon would ask someone where I was. Then someone’d ask someone else. It’d go around the room in whispers, “See Albright this morning? Where’s Albright?” until it got to someone who knew. And then the whispers’d come all the way back across the room, “He fucked off.”
“When?”
“In the middle of the night.”
It’d come snaking back across the tables to Deacon. Being a responsible asshole, he’d get out of his seat, wipe his mouth and, looking very gravitas, approach the head table. By now, everyone’d know, everyone’d be watching. Deacon’d get to the head table, go around back, down he’d go until he got to Psycho Schiller. He’d lean over and whisper in his ear. Psycho, knowing he was being watched, wouldn’t look up. He’d make a little notation on a pad and go back to his breakfast. Then after waiting a respectable amount of time, say a minute or two, no more, he’d get up and still not looking anyone in the eye, make his way slowly out of the cafeteria. Not long after that, they’d be sweating E.K., the headmaster in his beautiful suit and Psycho, E.K. crying, all red-faced, saying, “He went to Texas, he went to Texas.”
And me, instead of hightailing it down south (I was fifty yards from total freedom), I was getting sucked back home. By recess I’d be sitting in the back of a police cruiser outside the main building, the fucking laughing-stock of the whole school. I’d even have to give the eleven dollars back. I’d be expelled. I’d be one of those guys walking across the quad, no one talking to me, everyone feeling sorry for me like I was a leper or something. And I wouldn’t even have got a fucking adventure out of it.
We drove on and it started to get light. It was just the pissiest morning, grey sky, bits of rain, dreary, sad little houses every sooften out the window. Telegraph poles going by. Wiping the fog off the window with the heel of my hand. More shitty little houses right smack in the middle of nowhere. I sat in the back of the bus, nodding like an old coot. It was like my brain was trying to escape into sleep.
The bus pulled off the highway and starting winding its way along a narrow country road. I sat up in my seat, looking around. Some guy was making getting-ready gestures up front. I looked at my watch. It wasn’t even six yet but it was awfully fucking bright out. We pulled into a little town, very pretty with bright coloured stores, running alongside a river. The bus made that creaking sound and stopped outside a tiny station. Mist covered the windows. You couldn’t see anything. The guy at the front of the bus got up to get off. The doors swished open. You could hear him go down. There was a moment where everything just hung there like a plate just about ready to fall off a table. The doors started to close again. I got up out of my seat. I hurried to the front of the bus.
“Where are we?” I said.
“Niagara Falls,” the guy said.
I looked at him. He was staring straight ahead, waiting.
“Can I get out here?” I asked.
He turned and looked at me. He looked exactly like Danny Lang, the guy Daphne dropped me for.
“Do you live here?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Then you better get out,” he said.
The doors opened again. I got down. He got out after me and opened up the compartment under the bus. Pulled out my suitcase.
“What have you got in there? A body?” he asked.
A moment later I was standing alone by the river side, watching the bus pull around a corner and head back to the highway. I went over to my suitcase. I lifted it up onto the railing and spilt it over the side. It tumbled down into the green water with a splash. It hung there for a second, all my stuff, my jackets, my loafers, my school ties, my cufflinks, even my Grade Eight broad-jumping medal, it hung there for a second and then very slowly it started to revolve, it started to turn very slowly and head out into the middle of the stream, my brown suitcase full of all my stuff turning slowly and going south.
Then I started my way along the side of the river. I must have walked for about ten minutes when I came to a sign pointing towards the United States. Big arrow. I felt in my back pocket for my wallet. It was still there. I came across a narrow wooden bridge, I started walking across it. It was just for pedestrians. Dew on the wood. Very slippery. I crossed right over the river. I looked down for my suitcase but there was just the green water rushing underneath. I didn’t stop though. Thought someone might be watching me. I could feel myself starting to freeze up. At the end of the bridge, maybe thirty yards away, was a little booth. I walked toward it, my intestines turning inside me. I got to the window. A man in the same uniform as the guy the night before slid open a window. He looked a little bit like Captain Kangaroo. As if he might have had a few drinks the night before and not be feeling so good but was being cheerful to cover it up.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning.”
“Going across?”
“Yes, sir.”
“For how long?”
“Just the day.”
“Got any ID?”
“Sure.”
He looked at my birth certificate.
“Oh, and this too,” I said. I handed him my student card.
“Why aren’t you in school today?” he asked.
It was the big one and it came screaming across the plate at a hundred miles an hour.
“A scholar’s holiday.”
“A what?”
“It’s a scholar’s holiday.” I said it more clearly, looking him right in the eye and smiling the way I imagined someone with really good marks would.
“Okay,” he said. He handed me back my stuff. I walked slowly down the gangplank and onto a street. I didn’t look around. I put my hands in my pockets, looked up and down the street like a happy tourist and headed down the road. The road arched away slightly and after a few minutes, I peeked over my shoulder. I started running down the street. I heard a car horn honk behind me. It was a yellow Cadillac. I put out my thumb. The car pulled up alongside of me. The windows whirred down. Music boomed out of the inside of the car. It was that song from the dance last summer at Hidden Valley, “She’s Gotta Move Up.”
“Where you going, kid?” the driver asked.
“Florida,” I said.
“Well, get in. I can get you started.”
We were driving through town.
“It’s a great thing you’re doing, kid,” he said. “I always wanted to do that. Just fuck off, you know. Wham! Gone!”
He drove me a few miles out to the turnpike, stopping at the foot of a huge bridge.
“Just stay on here kid, just stay on this route.” He motioned to the bridge, this great big monster with cables rising up, the cars whizzing past us. “Fifteen hundred miles down that road, you’re in Florida.”
I got out. He gave me a honk and sped off back toward town. I started across the bridge. The wind was just howling. My hair standing on end. I could lean against the wind, it was so strong. I just walked on, getting more and more excited. I stopped about halfway. I looked down. The water roaring below, so far,
far below me.
I made it, I thought, I made it!
Goodbye Mom, goodbye Dad, goodbye Upper Canada, goodbye Scarlet, goodbye Forest Hill, goodbye E.K., goodbye dormitory, goodbye Psycho, goodbye everyone. No hard feelings. Goodbye. Goodbye. Arrivederci Roma.
And then I started running along the top of the bridge toward the other side. The wind just whipping like crazy.
Except that’s not what happened. What happened was I fell asleep on the bus back to Toronto and when I woke up we were pulling into the bus station down on Dundas Street. I just about jumped out of my pants. I looked at my watch. It was only seven o’clock. The Indians got out first but I just about pushed them down the stairs to make them hurry up. I grabbed my suitcase out of the hatch and flagged a cab. Told him to go like hell. We went up around the back of Upper Canada, me wide awake now, and I jumped at Kilbarry Road. I gave him a whopping tip.
I stuck my suitcase between the hedges and the school fence and shot up the back driveway. It was still raining and there wasn’t a soul around. I went in the side door of the dormitory, up through the basement. You could smell the dust and the oldpipes down there. I opened the door to my room. E.K. rolled over and looked at me. Funny thing is, he didn’t even seem surprised.
“Jesus Christ,” he said and rolled back over.
After awhile he scratched his shoulder.
“You owe me eleven bucks.”
CHAPTER TEN
SNOW FELL. I was watching it flicker past my window. E.K. was sitting on the bed, pulling at that giant dong of his and cutting out pictures of some political guy from the newspaper and pasting them in a scrapbook.
“Hey, E.K.,” I said, “did you know his girlfriend screws around? I met this guy that’s balling her.”
“Fuck you,” he said, not even looking up.
The hall prefect came by. He had bowed legs and bad skin and for some mysterious reason he’d taken more or less an instant dislike to me. He came into the room without knocking, which was his way of showing contempt.
Lost Between Houses Page 17