Whipped

by William Deverell

  “No problem,” said Yoki, her favourite phrase for practically everything. “Come back by five o’clock, weed garden.”

  “I’ll bring these ladies back, Mr. Beauchamp.” Morg looked as zombie-ish as ever when he smiled.

  The young women appeared embarrassed, averting their eyes from the foolish old man standing there in his pyjamas. Well, he wasn’t their father. They were of age. They’d come to North America to explore Western culture. Let them.

  “Please, you come tomorrow, Arthur,” Niko said.

  “I doubt I will.”

  “Just do it,” Yoki called, as the van drove off. “No problem.”

  Arthur went looking for his slipper.

  §

  After dressing and arming himself with coffee, he checked Margaret’s schedule, a computer printout on his desk by the phone. June 22: Antigonish, Nova Scotia. A speech at a social this evening. It would be mid-afternoon there. She would be hitting the bricks with her candidate. He dialled her cell.

  “Hang on a sec,” she said, then addressed someone else, sharply. “No, Mr. Wiggins, I do believe evolution should be taught in the schools. It was nice meeting you.”

  The sound of a door closing. “Asshole,” Margaret muttered.

  “Exactly why I would rather eat razor blades than go door to door.”

  “He believes God made everything, especially himself, in God’s image. That’s Teresa laughing. She’s on the school board.” She called, “I thought you knew this neighbourhood.”

  Arthur apologized for interrupting her campaign and told her about the crisis, the transforming of their two young charges. “I’ve got to rescue them.”

  Margaret laughed it off. “Cool. They’re having fun. I’d like to meet Baba Sri Rameesh myself.”

  “Please don’t joke. I can’t return them to their Hokkaido parents as zombies. The international Woofer program would come under attack. I have to snatch those innocents away before they get immersed.”

  “Darling, you sound very harried. Have you not been feeling well?”

  Arthur hadn’t yet related his suspicions of having been drugged into states of euphoria. He was embarrassed by those events, by how she might see them as evidence of creeping senescence.

  “I am sharp enough of mind to know that Silverson is up to no good. Fleecing well-to-do Californians, that’s my bet.”

  “Yes, and while that is going on, the environment ministry is gagging its scientists. Farquist just had two of them fired for whistle-blowing. And the fix is in on the Coast Mountains Pipeline, I think they’re planning to bypass Parliament.”

  Arthur got it. The Transformation Mission was a trivial pursuit.

  “Still no blowback?” Code for repercussions from the hot-mike episode.

  “Nothing. Did you talk to Frank Sierra?”

  “He declined, I’m afraid. Prefers to grow roses.”

  “Too bad. Back to work. Love you.”

  SUCH SIGHTS AS YOUTHFUL POETS DREAM

  Arthur had washed the Fargo that afternoon, proud of it, proud to have the oldest working truck on the island, and was pleased to see eyes turn as he slid it into a slot in front of the general store.

  He’d planned a major supply run, but on entering the store was dismayed to find its shelves and bins almost empty. No bread, no oranges, barely any juice. Presumably the Transformers had looted the store for their party tomorrow. Fine. He could do without his regular morning toast and juice. He had a flourishing garden, a bounty of eggs and goat cheese.

  He found better luck in the hardware section, the screws and hinges he needed for a broken gate. He carried on to the checkout, where he bought a newspaper, and to the mail counter, where Nelson Forbish was trying to mollify steely-faced Abraham Makepeace.

  “I wasn’t in a good mood last week, because you rode me pretty hard. I have struggled with that and achieved calm and forgiveness. I respect you, Abraham. I love you, as I love all living beings.”

  Makepeace ignored him, went to the Blunder Bay box, crammed with a week’s mail, and began the slow process of sorting it.

  “Postcard from Deborah.” Arthur’s daughter in Australia. “Looks like she’s getting along with that new husband of hers. They’re on holiday . . . I can’t make it out . . . Papua something.”

  Forbish was standing his ground, leaving Arthur little counter space. “I ask you to search your heart, Abraham, and heal the bitterness. Please don’t cut off my mailing privileges. Tell him, Arthur, explain that’s against the law.”

  “So is libel.” Makepeace passed Arthur last week’s Bleat, with a front-page spread about the Transformation Mission and a back-page ad for their open house, promising “peace and oneness and coming together,” along with “free eats, free drinks, and fried minds.” The fried was one of Forbish’s typically grievous typos. Freed minds?

  Arthur turned to the “Who’s Who on Garibaldi” column. The final item counselled the island’s postmaster to “start thinking seriously about retirement given the recent snippy attitude he has shown yours truly and many others.”

  “I’m printing a correction for this week,” Forbish said, “along with a profile saying our postmaster has served relentlessly for two decades. And a photo.” He brandished a camera.

  Makepeace turned his back to him and showed the camera his scrawny rear end. That freed up Arthur’s mound of mail, which he scooped up and stuck in his pack. Next stop would be the Brig for his afternoon tea. He took the elevated walkway, pausing to enjoy the ocean view, checking out the scene on the patio.

  Cudworth Brown was passing pints to a tableful of cronies, grateful disciples today because he was buying. One of Canada’s lesser-known poets, the muscular one-time ironworker subsisted mostly on grants and readings and hand-selling his three slim published works. Arthur assumed they’d found a niche market with their recurrent themes of carnality and bodily functions, because Cud had been offered an advance for his fourth. It must have come in.

  Cudworth was half pickled, going on loudly about the open house. “Free eats, free drinks, and bet your ass there’ll be free drugs. That dude Jason will naturally want to dip into his jar of Upper Shelf and chop a few lines to share with his literary and artistic colleagues.”

  “Free drugs, man,” said Honk Gilmore, a retired marijuana broker.

  “Fried minds,” yelled the wild-haired sculptor, Hamish McCoy, to raucous laughter.

  “Free love, baby.” Cud chased a shot of whisky with a beer. “Not just of the spiritual variety. We expect better than that from the king stud at Starkers Cove.”

  Arthur heard a note of sarcasm, or maybe envy. Cud was known to have bedded a multitude of local women and likely resented being relegated to second stud behind the blond bombshell.

  “Speaking of scoring some free love,” said Honk, “how about those three hipster chicks from Pasadena that dropped in here last night? Drove off the ferry in a top-down Mercedes Cabriolet that’s got to price out at eighty K all in.”

  “Youthful adventurers with rich daddies,” said Cud. “Seekers of light and truth who will find it totally awesome to invite a famous poet into their tent. Gonna be hard to protect my virginity.” He raised his glass. “To peace and oneness, baby, and coming together.”

  Arthur skirted around them, to the bar, where Taba Jones was sitting, in shorts and well-filled T-shirt. The flame-haired potter had been spending a lot of time in the pub since Felicity took up with the Transformers. She was chatting with Emily LeMay. A closed conversation, Arthur felt, womanly things or gossip. He sat at a table with a view of the parking area and the dock and opened his newspaper, yesterday’s Globe.

  The front page was depressing, Zika virus everywhere, the Middle East at constant war, another oil spill in Hecate Strait. Arthur fled to the staid inside pages, the political coverage. The main story: an uproar over Farquist’s firing of scientists
critical of the Coast Mountains Pipeline. Margaret earned a paragraph, calling him a “tinpot dictator kowtowing to his corporate masters.”

  Lower down, another mention of Margaret, under the head, “Star Candidate Runs for Greens,” quoting Margaret as being ecstatic about her catch: Dr. Lloyd Chalmers, who would be seeking the seat of Halifax East, in his city of birth.

  Margaret had introduced the “well-known psychologist and author” at a rally there. On Thursday, two nights ago. Arthur didn’t recall her mentioning that during their conversation earlier today. This had become a pattern, the not-mentioning of encounters with Chalmers.

  As Emily approached with his tea, he folded the paper quickly to the crossword puzzle, as if hiding embarrassment or shame. He decided on shame. Cuckolded once again, the central theme of his life. Alternatively, another kind of shame could be his lot: unwarranted suspicion, jealousy falsely held. He hunched over the puzzle.

  “Mind if I join you?” Taba had already done so, startling him as she sat down. She saluted him with her four o’clock regular, a gin and tonic, a refill. “You look woebegone, Arthur. Raccoon get into your garden?”

  She offered a welcome distraction from thoughts of the Green leader’s ecstasy over her star candidate.

  “I was pondering a nine-letter word for ‘self-abuse.’”

  “The word masturbation comes immediately to mind.”

  “Twelve letters.”

  “Try masochism.”

  “It fits.” Albeit in an unnerving, ironic way. The conversation had taken on an earthy edge that had Arthur feeling awkward, fumbling for words. “I don’t see your truck out there, Taba.”

  “I hitched, out of necessity.” She indicated the several rolls of toilet paper protruding from her pack. “Or else I’d be wiping my ass with this week’s Bleat. Did you read that sycophantic twaddle? About Forbish receiving all those ‘powerful vibrations of love’? Praising their ‘latter-day prophet’? They must have spiked his nacho chips with powdered gupa. You’re not going to their circle jerk tomorrow?”

  “I would rather jump naked and bleeding into a tank of piranhas. What happened to your old GM pickup?”

  “Won’t start. I think it had a heart attack.”

  “A perfect opportunity to return your generosity. My chariot is ready . . . Voila.” He pointed down to the washed and shiny Fargo. “Delivered as promised, to my astonishment. I wonder if the Transformers got to Stoney.”

  “He’s too good at shit-detecting to buy their goop. A scammer knows a scammer.” She was still turned to the window. “Oh my God, there he is.”

  Gliding toward the parking area came the Mercedes Cabriolet, the top down, two of the Pasadena hipsters in the back, the third beside the driver, Robert Stonewell. As it nestled beside the Fargo, he passed a roach on a clip to his seatmate, a slender black woman with a burst of untamed hair and a very mini mini.

  “Scammed himself right into their hearts with his homegrown Garibaldi gold,” Taba said.

  Her laughter was contagious and helped Arthur overcome his shock that Stoney had maneuvered himself into the driver’s seat of this sleek, expensive machine. The car had been a powerful magnet, the pretty girls a bonus, and his prime bud had likely earned him the job of tour guide.

  The two women in the back — a sultry East Asian in tight shorts and a leggy Caucasian stunner with orange hair and patched cutoffs — demonstrated their fitness by vaulting over the sides of the convertible. They paused awhile, their cameras on video, panning the bay, the dock, and the old store. Daughters of wealth for sure, unless they’d stolen that Mercedes.

  “God, they make me feel so old and plain,” said Taba.

  “Nonsense. You are quite lovely.” He gulped his tea, flustered, the compliment too bold.

  “You need glasses.”

  He considered assuring her she also had a wisdom and maturity those kittens were decades from attaining. But again he couldn’t get the words out.

  “Emily told me they were here last night doing tequila shooters. Becky, Gelaine, and Xantha, with an X. Starlets, though you could mistake them for hookers. Anyway, Emily got out of them that they drove the convertible up here for Silverson. I guess he got tired of pretending he was just a laid-back average Joe with an Econoline van.”

  Arthur liked Taba’s wit and cynicism. He enjoyed sharing their contempt for Silverson and speculating about his game. He’d needed a friend to banter with, a distraction from the green-eyed monster and his worries about Margaret’s gossipy indescretion.

  The two camera-toting starlets came into the bar from the store, placed an order with Emily, then headed toward the patio, pausing close enough for Arthur to hear the orange-haired woman say, “Those crackers look like leftovers from a horror-flick audition.”

  They were staring at Cud Brown’s table. The men seemed struck dumb, gaping as the two women strolled past them and leaned over the sturdy railing, looking directly down to the frothing little inlet below, its orange and purple starfish clinging to the rocks. More aiming of cameras.

  A glance outside revealed Stoney and his wild-haired friend strolling toward the dock, Stoney chattering nonstop on a cannabis high, she laughing, taking his arm.

  Starlets. Presumably, Silverson still had connections in the film industry. These young women showed no signs of having yet succumbed to the thousand-mile stare. Indeed, they hardly seemed Transformer material. They would probably be a little less lively after their first taste of gupa.

  “The good stuff,” Emily whispered as she went past their table with a bottle of champagne in a bucket.

  Cud was already pulling from his jacket pocket one of his poetry books, a well-used tool of seduction. He rose and moved toward the starlets’ table. One of them, the orange-top, began to film his advance.

  That put him off stride, and he paused to pull in his gut. Forced to depart from his game plan, he improvised, grinning in a loopy way at the camera and announcing in a booming voice: “Cudworth Brown, your friendly neighbourhood prize-winning poet, at your service, ladies.” He bowed deeply, staggered, and almost went over the empty chair in front of him.

  The starlets moved the champagne flutes to safety, on top of the railing. Xantha was the Chinese-American. He’d overheard the other called Becky.

  “Sorry, gals, but you caught me celebrating. Just got a handsome advance from my publisher.” Cud displayed his copy of his latest vulgarity, a collection called Cunnilinguistics, then produced a pen. “Got to warn you, these are for the mature mind. For the full erotic effect, I’d need to read them aloud — don’t be shy about asking. Now how do you want me to sign this?”

  “With your dick,” said Xantha.

  §

  Taba’s two gin-and-tonics had made her a bit unsteady, and she took Arthur’s arm as they descended to his truck. On reaching level ground, she tugged that arm around her waist, and pulled him into a hug, her elegant breasts pressed to his ribs.

  Arthur found his pulse quickening, and felt embarrassed and guilty. The embrace was far too pleasurable, fraught with risk. He hoped she wasn’t coming on to him — he wouldn’t know how to handle that.

  He looked up to the patio to see Becky filming them, and Taba noticed too and quickly pulled away. On the other side of the patio, staring gloomily into space, was Cud Brown, back with his cronies — who had been ribbing him when Arthur was paying his bill and, despite her protest, Taba’s.

  She was also looking at Cud. “Such a cliché, the poet as obscene drunk. Contrary to local legend, he’s the world’s worst lover.”

  Arthur didn’t care to speculate on how she knew that. Becky’s camera was now on Stoney and the black woman, Gelaine, who was pulling on leggings by the open trunk of the Mercedes. Stoney seemed torn between ogling her and her car. She in turn was admiring the Fargo.

  “Yo, Canuck, I love your truck,” she said, after peering i
nto the cab. “Authentically cool.”

  Stoney didn’t miss a beat. “All scrubbed up and ready for you, gorgeous.”

  “Wait,” Taba said, clinging to Arthur’s arm, restraining him from racing to his truck’s rescue. “They haven’t seen us.” She led Arthur to a bench behind Makepeace’s delivery truck, out of view but within earshot.

  He didn’t want to spoil Taba’s fun, but wasn’t able to relax until he fished into a pocket and found the Fargo’s ignition key, which he displayed to her triumphantly. It usually stayed with the truck but Arthur had removed it. Here was a rare opportunity to enjoy Stoney’s misfortune.

  Stoney had been rhapsodizing about the pickup, the most prized of his many vintage vehicles, and now was holding open the passenger door. “Front seat of an old bone-shaker like this is the only way to see the real Garibaldi. I know all the secret coves, I got stash beaches, stash lakes, waterfalls. I got one special place only God and Bob Stonewell’s ever been to. Half an hour there and back.”

  “Well, let’s fucking go.” Gelaine shouted up to her friends. “I’ll be back in half.”

  Stoney gave her a hand up, then went to the driver’s side. Arthur fought his Pavlovian response to rescue the Fargo, tightened his grip on his key. Stoney got behind the wheel, then softly voiced what sounded like a profanity.

  Arthur expected to see him scrambling around for a hidden key and was shocked to hear a familiar sound, usually pleasant to his ears: the rich rumble of the Fargo starting up. Either Stoney had a spare key or it had taken him ten seconds to hot-wire the ignition. By the time Arthur launched himself from the bench, the Fargo had backed out and moved onto the road.

  From the patio, Becky filmed the Fargo as it accelerated away, then turned her camera on Arthur as he ran onto the road, shouting and waving, then ceasing his useless pursuit, out of breath.

  §

  Arthur had his own stash of hideaways, and the one to which he was escorting Taba was on East Point Ridge above Hopeless Bay, a stiff twenty-minute climb — they’d left their packs at the store — which paid off with views of meadow, forest, and rocky shores; the green islets and sparkling sea beyond; and, Arthur hoped, of Stoney driving the purloined Fargo. The path was little more than a deer trail, and he’d had to assist Taba over fallen logs and a root mass.