Arctic Smoke

by Randy Nikkel Schroeder

  “C’mon, dude!” Alistair grabbed him by the shirt. “Less you want to go to the hooskow.”

  Lor ran. There was no angry wonder any more. There was no Man. Only ageing fools, rattling life’s tamborine, smashing hope season after season.

  † † †

  “Where are we?” Lor said, breath scouring his bronchi.

  “Trust me, ’migo. Run.”

  They hustled up a flight of steps to a heavy door, Alistair leading with long legs. He flung open the door, to sunshine and a whirl of leaves. He stomped out onto a balcony, held out his arms, reached to stay his hat against the wind.

  Lor, directly behind, saw a catwalk stretching from the balcony across an alley to the Shanghai Restaurant. The catwalk was suspended, cable-stayed to a single tower, narrow, latticed, without rails.

  “Shit.” Alistair let his arms drop. “The fucking thing is metal-fatigued to the nuts, bro’. Take a look.”

  Lor looked. The catwalk was fissured and deformed, webbed with cracks all along the girders.

  “Meaning?” Lor said.

  “Meaning, ’migos, we have aggravated crack-growth, perpendic’lar to stresses, heading for brittle fracture.”

  “Least we got one,” said Fatty.

  Alistair turned to face them. Squinted. “Rusty, you first. Then the rest of you.”

  Lor frowned. “What—?”

  “Now!” Alistair said, pointing across.

  Rusty squeezed by and teetered across the catwalk, followed by Fatty, whistling a tune. Then Lor. He tripped just before midspan, and for a second was bent over far enough to spy each bit of garbage in the alley below—popsicle wrappers, Fudgsicle sticks, Slurpee cups.

  He heard a soft thud.

  “Move,” Alistair said behind him. “I can hear the Man’s hobnailed boots on the stairs.”

  Lor shimmied past the tower, then stopped.

  “Shit!”

  “Move,” Alistair said.

  Lor smacked his shirt pocket. Turned.

  “Al, I dropped my bag of dust.”

  “Say what?”

  Lor pointed.

  “I thought you . . . w’fuck it.”

  “Fuck you. Step aside. It’s on the bridge behind you.”

  Alistair turned, shook his head. “Christ,” he whispered, then spun to face Lor again. “Run. I’ll get it.”

  In an instant Alistair was back across midspan, snatching the bag. Lor scrambled to the far side, then swivelled to watch. Alistair turned again.

  “Got it,” he said.

  Almost had time to grin.

  The girders abruptly snapped and twisted, as the catwalk buckled beneath his feet. The balcony screeched. The midspan fell away. Alistair reached up and knotted his fingers through the lattice, then plunged downward with the remaining metal, trailing blue powder from one fist.

  “My bag.” Lor couldn’t believe he was saying it.

  Alistair kicked back his legs. On the upswing, just as he released the bag, his hat blew off. Both bag and hat twirled against the sky. Then the bag hit Lor in the stomach, a perfect pitch.

  The door across the alley cracked open, and Shemp popped through holding the Jell-O’d harp, followed by an enormous cop. Shemp’s fly was open, sprouting bits of red underwear.

  For a moment, everyone was spellbound by the spinning grey hat, riding the wind to briefly eclipse the sun. The hat sucked in a batch of leaves, then coughed them out and plunged like an angry kite.

  Lor stared from the Shanghai side, mouth open, bag clenched. The cop drew his gun and pointed it at the hat.

  “Constable Ratzass!” Shemp blocked the gun with the harp.

  “Fly!” Alistair cried, hanging helplessly.

  Lor and Rusty were mute.

  “Wo.” Fatty whispered.

  The hat nosedived.

  It splashed down in a pond of garbage and began to tumbleweed, sticky with junk—wrappers, sticks, Slurpee cups.

  “Small ice on the hat,” said Fatty.

  “Fly!” Alistair dangled. His voice ricocheted.

  They stared—at the swinging scarecrow, the monstrous cop, the rolling hat. Shemp shook the harp. It whispered a few notes in the wind and seemed to drive the cop back to his senses. He pointed the gun away from the hat and across the alley.

  “Fly!” Alistair cried. “Fly, you fucking fools!”

  The spell broke.

  They flew.

  PART FOUR

  Concerto Druggo

  Tobacco is a product that does a lot of damage. Marijuana is infinitely worse.

  —Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, 2015

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Don’t Forget the Reviving God

  “Sorry I missed our meeting at the Ship & Anchor.” Rooke’s car clumped over the Highwood River bridge, somewhere south of Calgary.

  “You did?” Seri said.

  “I had thinking to do.”

  Seri tugged her seatbelt. “I did a little soul-searching myself. Ever hear of a boy in a top hat and red military jacket?”

  “Never.”

  They passed a poplar shattered by lightning. “Ted. Where we going?”

  He didn’t answer. When they reached Okotoks, the whole town seemed to be celebrating the chinook winds and the passing of snow. A garden wedding at the top of a still-green hill, shading down to a pumpkin patch. Kids fishing from a tree. Well-groomed families on the way to midweek Bible study.

  “You’d think it was already spring,” Rooke muttered.

  “I like it,” Seri said. “My birthday is in spring.”

  Rooke grimaced.

  “Everything seems in order here,” Seri continued.

  “You sound like an eighteenth-century sermon.”

  “Ted?”

  “They tended to depict God as an all powerful watchmaker.”

  “Nice.”

  Rooke frowned. “The clockwork universe is wish-fulfilling mind-rot.”

  “It isn’t.”

  Rooke began to tap. “Think of what we give up in such a universe.”

  “Think of what we gain. The assurance that we can be renewed—”

  “Be quiet.” Rooke’s knuckles whitened on the wheel.

  Fine. Seri bit her lip.

  Rooke released his fingers. “A few weeks ago,” he said, “I set up a sting for subversives, on the web.”

  “Good.”

  “A fake advertisement for an Arctic music festival, tailored to attract punks and druggies.” He tapped. “Blasting gross commercialism and lazy suburban ennui, to appeal to their mistaken sense of hope, and meaning. A web: I was the spider.”

  “Spider.” Seri nodded. “What do you mean, was?”

  Rooke sighed.

  “So have you caught anyone yet?” Seri said.

  The car slowed, rolled to a stop on the train tracks.

  “So you have no taste for chaos?” Rooke said. “None whatsoever?”

  Warning bells began to clang. A train hooted in the distance.

  Seri gripped her seat belt. “Ted. Where are we going?”

  † † †

  “Yesterday I was chased by a punk. A druggy.” She could play Rooke’s game. The car sped, but in what direction she wasn’t sure. “He was on speed, dangerous, completely, uh—” she searched for the word. “Completely wired.”

  But instead of jumping all over it, Rooke sighed again. His shoulders slumped.

  “Ted, don’t you care? I’m telling you, this guy was—”

  “I’m calling it off.”

  “What?”

  “It’s over.”

  “What’s over?”

  He brushed the dash, as if it were dusty. “You were right. We have no mandate, no theatre of operations.”

  “I didn’t say that. We’ll find out.”

  “I am not in communication with any authority.”

  Well, that was nonsense. Seri would find out, and soon. Why were they so aimlessly driving the countryside?

  “Ted. If you ha
d seen this freak, I’m telling you.”

  Rooke offered a dismissive wave.

  “And he was with this kid who threw knives, I think they were together. Og was probably giving him drugs too, because—”

  Rooke’s teeth clacked. “Who?”

  Seri tapped the glovebox, wondered if there was a map inside. “The kid, because—”

  “Not the kid.”

  “Og?”

  “What did he look like?”

  Seri pulled her seat belt, let it zip back. “Tall, shaved head, lots of skin sores, skeleton face. A cross tattooed on his neck.”

  Rooke slapped the dash. “Oggleston!”

  “No, just Og. Ted, watch the road.”

  He turned his head. “He couldn’t possibly still be alive. Are you certain?”

  “Is he a friend of yours? Family?”

  “Family?” Rooke began to tug his goatee, then muttered, “If he’s alive, the others, too, maybe, home, south. . . .”

  Seri saw the rage, and her opening. “See. There is work to do. Identify these punks for me and we can prioritize a list of destinations. South where?” She opened the glovebox, hunted for a pen.

  “No.” Rooke’s shoulders dropped. “We’re finished, Serendipity.”

  “Stop thinking out loud, and brainstorm with me. South where?” But Seri could already feel it slipping away. The car slowed. Another set of tracks.

  Then it was clear, God’s plan for her, part of it anyway. She was sent to do a prophet’s work here: to remind Rooke of his job, to supply his fire, to keep him on the straight and narrow. Of course: to keep him from running. She was Aaron to his doubting Moses.

  “Ted, listen.” But she could not remember an example of steadfastness from her own life. The more she dug, the more vacancy she unearthed. Surely there was a perfect story somewhere, a principle, a parable. Well, memory was fickle. There would be a good example in the Bible, in history, in the lives of the saints, topics she could always remember.

  She exhaled, slowly. “Ted. Stop for a drink?”

  “Pick your poison.”

  The car slowed. The train hooted, already far behind.

  † † †

  They stopped for tea at McCunney’s in Nanton Springs, where Rooke gazed at her through a haze of Earl Grey steam.

  “This is our last meeting,” he said grimly.

  “No.” Seri bit toast and looked for jam. “Our first. Look, Ted. I can tell you’re disenchanted. Of course I don’t know the details, but I know you’ve lost your fire.”

  “Oh?”

  “I imagine you feel paralyzed, or like nothing you do matters particularly. I know you feel like running away.”

  “Oh?”

  She considered her purpose, the best way to quicken God’s plan. “What you need to do is look for one true thing.”

  “Could you be a little vaguer?” Rooke fanned steam.

  “One true thing, to hold you steadfast. One bedrock you cannot deny.”

  He roared a laugh, then bent backward so his spine cracked on the chair’s back.

  Seri flushed. “Fine.” She was surprised to find herself angry.

  “No, no.” Rooke sniffed, composed himself. “Do go on. My apologies.”

  She glared.

  “Seriously.” Rooke sipped tea. “I’m interested. I forget. I need reminding.”

  She looked at deep thumbprints in her toast. “Everyone has a dark night of the soul.”

  “Mhm.”

  “So you find one true thing,” she continued. “A belief, a purpose, an emotion.”

  “What is the most powerful emotion?”

  “Love.”

  He smiled, foxily. Some kind of facial semaphore, coded warning: you are someone I can disenchant.

  Seri ignored him. Steadfast, now. “Do you love Western history?”

  “The Nazis had their hatred.” Rooke was already moves ahead in this chess game. “And the old, dark consolations of Teutonic mythology. Two true things.”

  Seri paused to think.

  “Ragnarök,” Rooke reminded. “Heinrich Himmler.”

  She switched gears. “Read philosophy?”

  “Me or Himmler?”

  She ignored him. Here she was on firm footing, especially with the Moderns. “Descartes had his doubt. He could not deny one certainty: that there was a doubter in the universe.”

  “Inspiring. Makes one want to go out and do some good in this world.”

  “Hume had his skepticism.”

  “He also, as I recall, ran roughshod over the old clockwork universe.”

  “Well, we can never understand how everything is connected. That’s God’s business, ours is faith.”

  “Yes, connected.” Rooke sipped, frowned as if his tea were cold. “Connected to sensual pleasures, to family, to revenge.”

  “Obviously you don’t want to go that route.”

  “Yes.” Rooke smiled. “Obviously.”

  Seri plodded on. “Anyway, if nothing else, Hume had his skepticism.”

  “As you have yours.”

  “No.” She massaged toast crumbs in the saucer. “That’s not my bedrock.”

  “God?”

  Seri looked out the teashop window, at the chinook arch smudging the west horizon. This prophet’s work was tricky and subtle business. Perhaps the saints?

  “Augustine is a fine example,” she said.

  “Yes. Of what?”

  She leaned into it. Augustine was one of her favourites. “Even in confusion, even in great doubt, he remained steadfast. He never lost his will, or his certainty. Augustine had his faith.”

  Rooke fixed her with that piercing stare. “And Aquinas his hatred of women.”

  She nipped toast, three quick bites. “Of course there’s always a shadow side, that’s what gives life its depth.”

  “Of course, Seri.” Rooke cracked a knuckle. “Of course.”

  “You told me yourself, hatred can be one true thing.” She immediately regretted saying it.

  He smiled, almost kindly. “You do remind one. Do I need to keep you? Go on.”

  Time to try God’s very word. “Do you read the Bible?”

  “Backward and forward. Some good stories.”

  “Yes.” She warmed. “Think of some. Job, who never cursed God, despite Satan’s games. Abraham, who was willing to sacrifice his own son at God’s command, and never questioned why. Jacob, who wrestled the dark angel till dawn.”

  Rooke beamed.

  “What?” Seri spread jam with a finger.

  “You wrestle him yourself.”

  “No. Not.” She stroked the dimple in her cheek. “Exactly.” What had she been saying? Oh, right. “King David, who sinned, but did not succumb to easy guilt, or break his covenant with God. All the prophets, the ones who didn’t run away.”

  “Don’t forget the reviving god himself.”

  “Who?”

  “Seri. Come now.”

  “Oh.” She nipped toast. “Jesus. Well, some comparisons are a little—”

  “You make a great Sunday school teacher.”

  She felt the flush at her ears. “It’s called faith. Do you think I’m less worldly than you?” The words tumbled downhill. “These sound like naïve pronouncements, naïve and tawdry, and they are, in one way they are, but they are no less true for that, as anyone who has had direct experience of grief, and loss, and ennui and existential crisis—”

  “Enough.” Rooke squinted. He watched her, but seemed to speak to himself. “Our reminders do sometimes come in most unexpected ways, don’t they? Perhaps you are my unexpected visitor. Like Lot’s three guests? Lot, as in Abraham’s nephew, as in Sodom and Gomorrah? I like your word. Ennui.”

  Seri began to blank.

  “Here.” Rooke smiled. “I’ll continue for you. How about Satan in Paradise Lost? Who vowed to make a Heav’n of Hell, who constructed himself entirely of hatred, who nursed that hatred like white fire in his heart, and so made himself whole, gave himself a pur
pose.”

  Slipping fast.

  He continued. “Satan, your ultimate existential man.”

  Faster.

  “Perhaps you’ll light the white fire in my own heart, Serendipity?”

  Suddenly Seri couldn’t help but think of Rooke as a falling angel, already on fire.

  “Look,” she blurted. “They may still be alive, still out there.” This was risky, but Rooke was going to call checkmate soon. “Og’s companions, or brothers, or whatever.”

  “All dead.” Rooke’s mood lightened and darkened at once.

  “Og wasn’t dead. They’re punks right?” She pressed. “Worse than Og himself?”

  “All dead. One way or another.”

  “But what if they’re alive?” She unrolled her fingers, palms up. She didn’t even know who they were.

  “Yes. Do your best.” Rooke’s voice was bitter as strong black tea, fingers milk-white on the teacup. “Unexpected visitor.”

  She paused. Don’t do it, Seri. Something unhealthy here—less well-lit mandate, more Pandora’s box. Not worth it, don’t do it.

  She did.

  She took a breath. “Where did they live? That’s where we’ll begin.”

  He shoved back his chair, stood, glared. Whirling quickly enough to spin the back of his coat, he strode toward the rear of the teashop, creaking the tile. He did not look back. The washroom, Seri thought, he’s gone to the washroom. She heard a door slam, felt a rush of cooling wind.

  Minutes passed, and he did not return.

  She drank more tea. She spread more jam. It stained so red.

  “Lethbridge,” he whispered in her ear.

  She jumped. She spun. “Where’d you come from?”

  “They lived in Lethbridge. All of them. When they were alive.”

  His lips perked at the corners. But it was hardly a smile.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Tip of a Drowned Witch

  Lor scampered down alleys as cloud-shadows roared across the cracked and pitted urban landscape. Somewhere God’s Q-tip factory had exploded. Cottonwoods were in mad unseasonal bloom—down his lungs, up his nose, in his eyes. He didn’t stop running until he reached the northside Safeway, where he stumbled in to buy a devil’s food cake, then stumbled out and wolfed the entire thing on the walk.

  He stomped down Whoop-Up Drive, further north, face grimed with icing. Everything was screwed now—Alistair in jail, those two kids scattered, and what was Fatty’s number anyway? Lor kicked a rock. All for a bag of powder?