by Miriam Toews
“Yeah,” she heard Max say. “I miss you, too. Yeah. Yeah. No, not really.”
He was on the phone. Who does he miss? she wondered. And then she knew. He missed a woman. Some woman she didn’t know. Some woman he had met in Europe or somewhere. She sat on the bottom stair looking at his bare back and listening to him talking to this woman. “No,” he said, “I’m not, either. Yeah, I still do. I love you, too. What? Yeah, sometimes. Summer Feelin’. I know. My old girlfriend. She has blond hair, yeah, she’s four. Five? No, she’s four.”
Yeah, she’s fucking four, Knute thought to herself. Get it straight, asshole.
“Yeah, I broke it,” Max said. “Oh, I fell. Nah.”
“Tell her how you fell!” Knute yelled and she ran for the phone and grabbed it from him and threw it against the wall as hard as she could. Max sat there with his mouth hanging open for a few seconds and then he started yelling.
“What the hell are you doing? Where’d you come from?” That sort of thing and Knute was yelling, “What the hell are you doing, you fucking asshole!” That sort of thing. That sort of very typical thing. She yanked the cord out of the wall and then threw the phone at Max, both of them screaming the whole time. He ducked and the phone knocked over a lamp and the bulb shattered all over the rug. “Where the hell is S.F.?” she yelled. By now she was sobbing and yelling, “I thought I could trust you!” And mixed in with “Where’s S.F.?” and “Who was that?” and “I can’t fucking believe it.” Then back to “I thought I could fucking trust you!” Over and over. Max was trying to get to her, to hold her and calm her down, but his cast hooked onto the phone cord and he fell into the broken light bulb, and he cut his back and started to bleed, and just lay there, saying, “Calm the fuck down, Jesus Christ, calm the fuck down, please. She’s playing in the back, she’s playing in the backyard with Madison. Shut the fuck up and let me talk to you.”
Knute could hear Tom yelling from his bed, “What in the Sam Hill is going on down there? What broke?!”
And then she left. She ran out of the house and out of the town and past the sign she was supposed to be painting and she just kept running down the highway.
“Hello, sweetheart,” said Hosea from his desk. He saw Knute’s note and smiled. “How are you?”
“Oh, you know, fat,” said Lorna over the phone. “And green.”
“Fat and green?” asked Hosea.
“Pretty much, yeah. I’m hideous.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I feel hideous,” said Lorna. “How are you?”
“Well, I’m fat, too,” said Hosea. “Fat and white. I’m wearing shorts.”
“Well, it’s hot enough,” said Lorna.
“What are you wearing?” asked Hosea.
“Nothing,” said Lorna.
Hosea smiled. “Really?”
“No,” said Lorna, “I’m wearing shorts, too, with a panel.”
“A panel?” asked Hosea.
“Stretchy stuff in the front, maternity shorts.”
“Oh,” said Hosea, “I should get a pair.”
Lorna laughed. “I don’t really need them yet, I’m just trying them out. How’s the plan?”
Hosea cleared his throat. “Remember when I told you that Veronica Epp had left with her triplets?”
“Yeah,” said Lorna.
“That’s actually a shitty thing,” said Hosea.
“But it brings it down to one person, doesn’t it?” she asked.
“Yeah, but it’s shitty for Gord and her other children.”
“I guess it would be,” said Lorna. “But, you know, it might be good for Veronica. Anyway, Hosea, it’s not your fault, you know.”
“I wish I didn’t feel so happy about it.”
“You’re not happy about that,” said Lorna. “About her leaving, specifically. You’re happy that the numbers have gone down enough so that Algren might be the smallest town and you’ll get to meet your dad.”
Lorna was quiet.
“You’re laughing, aren’t you?” asked Hosea.
“No, of course not.”
“Lorna!” said Hosea.
“Well, okay, I am, but c’mon, Hosea, what do you expect?”
Hosea thought for a second. “I don’t know,” he said. He wanted to beg Lorna never to leave him. He wanted her to promise she would never leave him sitting heartbroken on the front step. He wanted her to promise she would never take their baby away from him. “The water tower looks great, though,” he said. “It’s perfect.”
“Is the horse on yet?” asked Lorna.
“Almost. Hey,” he said, remembering the favour he needed to ask of Lorna. “Do you think you could buy one of those backgammon-type briefcases for me and bring it out when you come on the thirtieth?”
All right, okay, thought Hosea as he popped an Emmylou Harris tape into his car deck. That’s taken care of. They’d made arrangements that Lorna would come out on the thirtieth with a bag of clothes and the backgammon briefcase, and after the first they’d move the rest of her stuff into Hosea’s place. Their place. “Huhhhhhhh,” said Hosea, expelling a giant breath of relief. One more’s gotta go. Just one more. I’m happy, thought Hosea. He thought of Gord on his front step. Am I happy or am I sad? he thought. I don’t know which to choose.
He pressed play on his tape deck. Then he changed his mind and pushed the eject button.
Knute ran until she was too tired to run, and then she walked. She thought maybe she’d walk to Winnipeg, to Marilyn’s, or maybe all the way down the Trans-Canada Highway to Vancouver. She walked into the ditch and up to a barbed-wire fence surrounding a field. She lifted the top wire and climbed through the fence and then she walked to a little tuft of bluish long grass in the middle of the dirt and lay down.
Caroline Russo, thought Hosea. Caroline Russo was pregnant with Johnny’s baby. Wild Caroline Russo with the eldorado-coloured lunch kit and the leather flask full of Dr. Pepper. If she and the baby were still alive, they’d be the kind of family that would sail around the world on a homemade boat, and let the kids go naked, and Johnny would have a beard … they’d laugh a lot … Hosea pulled into Johnny’s driveway. Johnny was standing there in his doorway smiling and holding two bottles of beer, like he’d been expecting Hosea. “Am I out?” he asked Hosea.
Hosea smiled. “No, no,” he said. “You’re still in. Soon you’ll be Algren’s new fire chief.”
“Hmmmm,” said Johnny.
“It’s a paid position,” said Hosea. “No more of this volunteering.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Johnny. “Want a beer?”
Johnny and Hosea moved the picnic table into a shady part of the yard and sat down to drink their beer. “I’m glad you stopped by, Hosea,” said Johnny. “’Cause I’m leaving this place day after tomorrow.”
“For how long?” asked Hosea.
“For good. I don’t want to die here.”
“But you’re not that old,” said Hosea.
“I know,” said Johnny. “I don’t want to die here, you know, I don’t want to live here like I’m. Dead I don’t mind dying here, I just don’t want to die. Here do you know what I mean?”
“I think so,” said Hosea. “I didn’t know you hated it here.”
“I don’t,” said Johnny. “I don’t hate. It it’s fine.”
“You might not find another place you like any better,” said Hosea.
“That’s true,” said Johnny. “But I can have a look around anyway and. Besides, I can just keep. Moving I don’t have to stay put in one. Place there’s no reason for me to. Oh, don’t look so. Sad, Hose, it’s a good. Thing I’m excited about moving. On I’m looking forward to it.”
“But what are you going to do while you move around?” asked Hosea. “What about your farm?”
“I’m gonna put out fires,” said Johnny. “There are fires burning out of control all over the. World I’ll get fed, and put up in some place, and I’ll just fight fires all over, until I’ve had. Enough or unti
l my lungs give out.” Hosea stared at Johnny. “And there’ll be other things to do, too, Hosea, don’t. Worry can I tell you something?”
“Yeah,” said Hosea. “Of course.”
“I want to sleep with women,” said Johnny. “Women from all. Over I want to have. Sex, you know? Just a lot of good, happy. Sex I’m tired of Caroline’s memory hanging over. Me I want to remember her, but I don’t want it to stop me from doing stuff anymore.”
Hosea cleared his throat and looked at Johnny gravely. “Do you really think you’ll be happy just moving around and screwing all sorts of women?” At that point both Johnny and Hosea began to laugh.
“Yeah,” said Johnny, “I really do.” Hosea was shaking with laughter now and Johnny could barely speak. “Yeah,” he managed to say, “I think I will be very happy doing that for a while.” Hosea was laughing too hard to say anything but he lifted his beer up to Johnny’s, against the pink sky, and they clanked their bottles together, and he thought he heard Johnny say, “To Caroline.” Or maybe he had said something else entirely and Hosea had only imagined that Johnny had said her name.
Eventually Knute woke up and decided to go home. First she sat in that blue tuft and examined the grass marks on her bare legs and then she wondered is it better to try to understand life or is it better not to? Which makes you happier? She remembered a book of Dory’s that said the mystery of life is one with the clarity and she thought, Yeah, okay, makes sense. Fighting and anger don’t necessarily drive a person away. And love and friendship don’t necessarily keep a person from going away. She had S.F. but she was losing Max. She knew she would in the end. She just knew it.
fourteen
“Are you drunk?” asked Lorna.
“Maybe,” said Hosea. “I was drinking beer with Johnny. In the sun. A lot of beer, I don’t know how many, but a lot. Good beer, though, very good beer. We had a good time, just sitting there at his little picnic table and—”
“Hey, Hosea!” shouted Lorna over the phone. “Snap out of it. I get the picture.”
“Okay,” said Hosea. He was writing the name Johnny Dranger in the Soon To Be Leaving Algren column and Veronica Epp and three babies in the Moved Away column. “Okay,” he said again to Lorna. He slapped a hand over his right eye and tried to focus on the page. “I wanted to tell you what we were doing.”
“You were drinking beer in the sun, you already told me that. Call me when you’re sober, Hose, and please don’t make a habit of getting hammered with losers like Johnny Dranger. You’re going to be a father soon.”
“That’s right,” said Hosea, slurring his words.
“Man, that beer should have been mine,” Lorna continued. “I wouldn’t mind having a cold beer, it’s so fucking hot, and I’m so itchy, do you think one would hurt? Hosea? Hosea!”
“We were celebrating, Lorna,” said Hosea. He’d put his head down on the desk and had the phone resting on the side of his head so he could still hear her. His eyes were closed. His hands dangled down by the floor. “I’m so happy. Everything’s just … so good. I’ve got fifteen hundred. I’ve got it right.”
“Really?” asked Lorna. “How?”
“Johnny’s leaving,” Hosea said. “He wants to meet women.”
“Really?” asked Lorna.
“Yup,” said Hosea happily. “And fight fires all over the world.” Hosea could hear Lorna laughing at the other end. His lips slid into a kind of half smile. “Do you love me?” he whispered, and the phone fell off his head and onto the desk, and Hosea was sound asleep.
Knute went home. The sky was a beautiful shade of blue, dark and soft and warm, and she could hear people talking in their houses because all the windows were open, and she could smell barbecues, and maybe a bit of rain on its way, and she could hear a lawn mower off in the distance and a car with no muffler tearing down deserted Main Street, looking for a race, and the crickets were starting up but sounded a bit rusty, and in front of her house, on the road, was a small woollen mitten covered in dust. It was S.F.’s so she picked it up and took it in.
Dory and Summer Feelin’ were playing Junior Monopoly and eating ice cream. They didn’t think anything was wrong. “Hi, Mommy!” said S.F.
“Oh, Knute,” said Dory, “Max said you’d be late. There’s some pizza left on the counter if you’re hungry.”
She gave S.F. a kiss and said thanks to Dory. Then she walked into Tom’s room. He knew she was coming. He was awake and was wearing his glasses. Knute closed the door quietly and sat on the edge of his bed and began to cry. “I didn’t tell them,” said Tom. “They don’t know what happened.”
“Do you?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“Max told me.”
“He told you? Max came in here and talked to you?”
“No. I got up and went down and helped him clean up the glass and I put some hydrogen peroxide on his cuts. S.F. played outside the whole time with the neighbour kids.”
“So,” said Knute, “aren’t you going to tell me you told me so, about Max being the same old Max?”
“He was talking to a girl. A little girl. He had a job taking care of her in London, her and her baby brother, and he was calling her to tell her he wouldn’t be back. When he left he had told her he might be, and now he just wanted to tell her the truth.”
Knute looked at Tom. “He told you that?” she said. “And you believe it?”
“Yes, I do. He called her back after you had, well, interrupted him, and he apologized, and then he told her what he wanted to tell her.”
“That he wasn’t coming back,” said Knute.
“Right,” said Tom. “That he wasn’t coming back.”
“Because he wants to stay here?”
“Yes.”
“So where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was he going home?”
“No, Combine Jo called here looking for him.”
“Oh God,” Knute said, and put her head in her hands.
“He can’t have gone too far,” said Tom. “He’s got a cast on his leg, and no car. Looks like Helen Keller dressed him this morning …”
“Oh God.”
“You know, Knutie,” said Tom, closing his eyes. “If you have fun with the guy …” Tom took a deep breath “… I hate advice,” he said. “But why don’t—if you have what you want—Why don’t—”
“Knutie!” Dory yelled from the kitchen. “It’s Jo on the phone. She’s wondering if you have any idea where Max could be.”
Hosea woke up from his nap with a stiff neck and a dry mouth. The room was much darker than it had been. He put the phone back where it belonged and put his notebook in the drawer. “I’ve got my fifteen hundred,” he whispered. “I’ve got the smallest town.” He sat at his desk with his hands folded in his lap and wondered, Was I coming or going? Well, he thought. I’m here now so I must be going. He stood up and walked to the open window and stared out at Main Street. It was completely deserted except for two small girls. They sat on the curb in the yellow light under the streetlight, playing a clapping game, and taking time out for sips from a Coke they were sharing. “Concen-tray-shun,” Hosea heard them chanting, “Concentration must begin-keep-in-rhyth-UM!” One of the girls slapped her thighs at the wrong time and both of them put their heads back and roared with laughter. “Okay, start again. Start again,” one girl said. “Okay, okay, hang on, okay, no, wait, okay,” said the other, and began to laugh again.
Hosea didn’t feel like going home. Tom, he thought. I’ll visit Tom. He was about to leave a note reminding Knute to spray the petunias with cockroach killer one more time, before July first, but then remembered that he’d be seeing her at Tom’s. Or, if she was out, he could leave the message there and she’d get it in the morning. Hosea left his office and his car, which he could barely remember parking, and set off for Tom and Dory’s. “Hello,” he said as he passed the girls on the curb. “Lovely summer evening, isn’t
it?” The girl who’d been having a hard time concentrating was trying not to laugh, and nodded her head, and the other one said, “Mm hmmm.” She made a face at Hosea as soon as he had passed, and both girls burst into laughter yet again.
“C’mon, Summer Feelin’,” said Knute, “we’re going to find Max. Hurry up, let’s go.”
“Is he lost?” she asked.
“We’ll see,” said Knute. “You can go barefoot, c’mon. We’re taking the car.”
Dory stood up from the table. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“Ask Tom,” Knute said. “He knows.”
“Tom knows?” asked Dory, as Knute and S.F. ran out the door.
“Ask him!” Knute yelled. “Wake him up!”
“Oh, Hosea,” said Dory, answering the door. “Is something wrong?”
“No, no,” said Hosea, “I was just wondering how Tom was. I thought I’d come visit for a while.”
“Oh. Well,” said Dory. “You know, Hosea, we’re having a little, well … oh, for heaven’s sake, just come in, then. Go and talk to him. My goodness, it’s hot out here.” Dory shook her head and peered off into the night. “Do you want a beer?” she asked suddenly.
“Oh no,” said Hosea. “No thank-you. Well, all right,” he said, and thought, hair o’ the dog, after all.
“Go on in,” said Dory, “I’ll bring you one. The only reason why I have a beer to offer you is because of Max. He’s looking after S.F. and Tom, while Knutie and I are off at work.”
“Well,” said Hosea, “that’s a nice arrangement.”
Dory frowned and stared off into the darkness again. “Go on in,” she said. “I’ll be right there.”
“Um, I could just get it myself, Dory,” said Hosea. “I know where the fridge is.”