by Nadia Bozak
* * *
Paddled until well after the sun had peaked, then Dave called back to stop.
“Have to sleep,” he said. “Just a nap.”
Near a patch of willow bush we pulled over. Shared not a look, a word, or a smoke. Dousing our hands and necks and faces in Muskol, we got rolled up in our tarps and shut out what was left of the day.
Me, I was up first, and had the canoe rolled over onto its back. Was turning dusk, the sun had set, and the sky had purpled into navy. The bow was empty, ripped up where the boots had been stapled down. With my messed-up fingers I had a look at the boat’s patchwork, the dents and bashes, stitched wounds and bandaged sores that we were trusting to hold up until we got to wherever we were supposed to be going. Nowhere now, it seemed. Ran the tips of fingers along the centre seam, and then rubbed the belly back and forth with the palm of my hand. Dave got up and stood behind me as close as he could without touching. Stayed kneeling over the trashed-out canoe, holding the flashlight at my side so the right side of me—cheek, neck, shoulder, mangled wig of hair—shone through the dark. Turned then and looked up at the figure standing so close behind. In the shadows he had no face, just shoulders and the sweep of falling hair. Then he knelt down beside me. Held the light for Dave as he patched and stapled and glued the boat, working the belly from bow to stern, then flipping it over and sticking the patches from the inside, going along the ribs from stern to bow.
Had only Dave to go by now, just like he’d said. He’d made it that way and I was trapped.
Then Dave said it was time to move on, but I stayed crouched up. Rocking on my heels, no reason to go anywhere. “No,” I said. “I’m waiting here for your old man. I want my boots back.” Grabbed my pack from the pile of duffel, tarp, and sleeping bag too.
Above me Dave let out a long, deep sigh. Something was said, buried in his breath. He paced around, grabbed twigs and switches and was snapping them, throwing down their spent pieces.
Held tight in murk. Our spotlight was the coming moon, the soundtrack was the rush of water, just yonder through the brush. Shrunk up in my stubbornness, I waited for Dave to do something.
“Here,” he said, at long last, kneeling down again. “Open your hand.”
Lit a match to see close what was there, in the palm of my mitt. It glinted, it glowed, that little piece of unlucky bone.
“You have the tooth now. You give it back as you see fit.”
Anger was washed out with sadness. Looked at Dave. His botched up, bug-bitten face, a midnight mirror in which I saw my own.
“But we keep moving, else he’ll think we’re planning something.”
Nodded. Stood and Dave did too, the tooth I tucked into the front pocket of my jeans.
“OK, Dave. Let’s get back those boots.”
* * *
And the moon we paddled beneath was sliced in half right down the middle. It shone freely for the day had been so crystal clear and so was the night that came after. The stars were out in droves and throngs so the river looked silver. The Richelieu rolled nicely along and even without our mascot, the overhauled canoe handled well. This aged canoe, as it now was, Dave and me drove it like masters of broken bow and smashed stern, and I thought we deserved credit for that because pushing on when you’re running desperate means way more and is way harder to do than even taking on rapids or falls or the saltiest sea or iciest ocean. The east bank was slung out in a snaking row of man-made lights, and beyond the water and across the land, these points of light gave depth to that night, showing a horizon beneath the star-spotted sky. On the west bank the lights were fewer, with miles of midnight in between. It was all quiet and silent for us, and then there came this train crashing through the blackness of the west. Stopped and listened to it as it broke in on us from out of the distance just behind, the low thunder and a whistle.
“That train’s doing the Montreal–New York run,” Dave called back. “I bet we’ll follow its tracks the whole way there.”
And then its white eye came charging out across that midnight and disappeared into the south.
* * *
We stopped to camp, though it was still night. But Dave was spent, he said. And me too, going on without much food, sleeping only in snatches, and so after three, four hours we were both fading, taking all these breaks from paddling.
“Getting close to the border now,” Dave said. “Never been this far south before.”
We carried gear and the canoe back into the clearing we’d scouted, and then we got Dave’s axe and my flashlight and went looking for firewood. Had fished a nice trout earlier when we’d stopped for a smoke and a piss, and we were both dying to get a fire going, cook it, and eat it up with salt and pepper packets from McDonald’s. Have a drink, a smoke. We’d talk about something else besides the old man, Pickles, or the boots. And I already had it in mind to stay up and wait for Dave’s dad and so exchange his tooth for what he had of ours. Then Dave and me could go on leaving all that shit behind us. And wouldn’t our ride into America and down to Manhattan be so smooth and calm, and wouldn’t we sleep well and just feel good knowing that the score was settled and that his bastard dad was so far away and long gone.
Walked downriver maybe ten minutes, feeling good to stretch our cramped legs, and then we fell back into the bush. Stopped for a leak, pants pulled down, and I was shooting out a hot stream. Dave was having a piss too, flowing like a regular hose, the way boys and men do, and talking about how the land and the trees just kept on getting softer, more full of life somehow, the further we got south.
“I think we’re going to like America,” he said through the dark.
“Anywhere there’s no cold and no trees.”
“Deserts and cities. That’s what it’s all about there. At least that’s what I aim to see.”
Walked on even further, taking in the cool night air, letting it soothe our brains a bit, repair the hurt of all that had happened since the bush bash, back since we’d met, back since we both had the bad luck to be born. Best worse friends and worse best friends—that fucked-up universe had been made for us alone, it seemed.
“Better not get too far or we’ll never find our way back.”
Dave started axing up a fallen pine, and then I had a go at it, each of us taking turns holding the flashlight. Low trees and high bush, leaves rustling, soil wrinkling, we stepped and toed our way toward the water. Careful and quiet, creeping we went because it was still the bush and so was as darkly unpredictable as the deepest North. Heads down, eyes up, for the likes of us would never otherwise go. Went on, got near, and then in the lead of my flashlight something caught our eyes. Dave saw it first. Picked it off the branch where it was hanging. Handled it real careful, and I saw his eyes narrow and the muscle in his jaw flex and get tense. Dave’s Slayer T-shirt. He threw it down, I picked it up, and he pushed on through that thinning nighttime bush. Next was the one for Kill ’Em All. Dave went on and left it there, so I grabbed it too. Next was Dave’s tape case, under a tree, flung open in a big bloody rage, and when we saw that, me and Dave looked at each other. Me, I was swallowing like crazy. Dropped my armload, and I got the knife pulled and poised. Dave, he just went, wood under arm, pushing on and pausing not to pick up comb or soap or dirty socks or any of his shit that was strewn there all through the Richelieu woods.
And at the clearing, there in the bushes, me and Dave stopped dead in our boots. Our stuff all spilled out on the ground, sleeping bags, bits of food we were saving, tarps, bandannas, matches and tin plates, rod and tackle, and in the middle of it a figure was ripping through one of our packs. He straightened up and turned around when he heard us. Caught in the bright of my flash-lit light was Dave Bashed-up-Boat’s White dad.
* * *
That clearing we’d claimed proved big enough to fight in. Dave held his eyes on the old man. Me, I stood back a little, stayed in the bushes, flashlights and Dave’s metal
shirts in one mitted paw, the knife out in the other. Told me to go for more kindling, they’d need a fire to see by.
Dave’s dad winced against my light. In his paw were the boots, held by the laces, saw that right away. Just as I was maybe going to lunge for them, his grip tightened up, like his muscled neck, stubbled jaw. Short and stocky, with the ball cap on and a windbreaker and boots and jeans, a regular kind of mill worker from the north of Ontario. But looking pretty roughened now, his face was heavily stubbled with brown and grey, and the jeans he wore were rags now. He was a good foot shorter than Dave, but his shoulders were maybe just as wide. Behind him on the ground were Pickles’s boots.
“Tell your girlfriend to turn that goddamn light off.” He shielded his eyes with his forearm, and when he spoke, I saw the big old gap there. The missing piece to this shitty puzzle and I held it in my pocket.
“And you can tell Rambo here I’ll put out this light when he gives me back my boots.”
Dave set down his wood.
“Take the light,” Dave said, “and go get some kindling.”
But I just kept on staring at the angry and tormented picture the old man was making in my wash of light, and so Dave had to say it twice, three times, before I did what he asked.
Left them there in the dark, and in the bush I gathered up some bits of branches and peeled bark. Five minutes, ten later, they were still standing there, looking at each other. Thought I heard them snorting, growling, hissing. Dave’s hands were fisted and hanging at his sides. His midnight eyes were slitted. The old man, meanwhile, had lit a smoke and taken off his jacket. The sweaty shirt underneath had gone from white to the same smoker’s yellow of his precious goddamn tooth.
As Dave built the fire, his movements were calm and almost slow. Crouched nearby, I watched him, all the while eyeing his dad, who paced around the clearing, cracking his neck and knuckles, the boots slung over his shoulder.
“Need more kindling in there, David,” the old man said. The fire was coming slow. “Now give it some air. You should know that.”
Felt Dave tense up. He kept on prodding at the smoking logs, and finally I gave in and started fanning up some flames with a tin plate.
Dave’s dad made a boundary for him and Dave to fight in. Going backwards, he pulled his right boot heel through the dirt, forming a rough circle, maybe seven feet by seven. Dave’s stuff he tossed to the side.
When the flames were enough to light that place in the bush, Dave got his leather jacket off and thrown down. There was breeze and the sound of leaves. Dave in his broken boots and the army pants, tattered and shredded and held together with duct tape and safety pins. Looked at Dave. His face still wearing yellow bruises, the cut under the eye still wet. Saw how thin he had become in his sagging Metal Patient T-shirt, how he wore his weakness in his skin and bones.
“Why now?” I said. “Why wait so long to show your face?”
“This is the border, ain’t it? End of my country now. I got no business in the States.”
“Got no balls to be there is what you mean.”
Dave’s dad threw down his smoke. Then he adjusted the ball cap, making it just so. He was bald underneath, I guessed. Imagined he never took the thing off, probably even shampooed with it. “You want your boots, I’d watch my mouth.”
“And you want your tooth, you better fight fair.”
“He will,” said Dave. “And me too.”
They both stepped into the circle.
The moon, it crawled behind a patch of cloud. The bush was lit by hot flame. Shadows were sharp and dark and flickering. Dave went into a karate stance, left boot forward and right one back, arms up, hands loosely fisted, held there to protect his face. Eyes were low and slow. Dave’s dad took the same pose with that ball cap stuck on his head. Me, I hoped Dave would get a chance to flick it off. Dave and his dad, they were holding onto each other with their hair-splitting, hate-spitting eyes. For moments they were still enough that I could not see them breathing.
Had waited long for this. And though he had beaten him once before, Dave was weak now, and tired, and there was no LSD to fuel his spirit and douse his senses with confidence.
Fully booted, the first kick came from Dave’s dad and it got him in the ribs. Dave went down on one knee and then got up again like nothing even happened. The next one clipped him in the mouth. Dave didn’t blink, but instead stepped up and spun around and got his dad in the side of the head. Then closed in on him with a pair of one-two punches, both blocked high by Dave’s dad. They separated, gathered themselves, shaking heads and rolling shoulders. Then they stepped up for more. Was sloppy, the way they fought, showed little of the smooth dancing and strict rhythm I thought real karate would have. Theirs was instead a combo of regular roughneck street-fighting and moves learned from watching Bruce Lee videos over and over in slow-mo. And it was backwoods, backwards, bastardized stuff his dad had put together and then forced upon this orphan Indian, who was in some fucked up way also his son.
Dave struck back and caught his dad in the chest, at the same moment meeting a roundhouse in the right side. All was quiet except for gasps and the soft thud of foot or fist meeting flesh. It froze me to watch them stumbling and jumping around, especially the old man, so light he was on his little ladylike feet. They’d carry on with the karate or kung-fu or whatever, and then they’d fall into a regular shit-kicking grapple, awkward punches landing on the shoulder, neck, side of the head. It was even at first, but then Dave slowed down and his dad got fast, sucking up the momentum as quick as his son was losing it, and soon Dave had blood on his shirt and he was breathing hard and coughing. A front kick landed square on his chest, and Dave went down, rolled out of the circle, and spat blood.
“One, two, three,” his dad started counting, prancing around the circle, flexing his neck.
Dave got himself up and stepped in for more. A kick in the gut, down he went, and then he took an elbow in the back. The way he moved, Dave’s dad was like a meat-feeding spider, quick and biting. After a month or more of starving in the bush, his brain sick with the old man’s slow, tracking torture and the beating we so recently took, I saw that Dave could not win. When his dad got him in a chokehold, I licked my lips and sealed a tight grip on Pickles’s hunting knife. Dave’s face was getting fiery red, coughing and gasping and digging his fingers into the bare meat of his dad’s forearm, eyes ugly and set to pop out of his goddamn head. So I crossed the line and I slashed at that noose of pure muscle wound around Dave’s neck. The man fell back, letting Dave go. He grabbed his wounded arm, but from his steady reaction and the blood that should have been oozing between his fingers, I knew I didn’t get him as deep as I meant to.
“Fucking cunt,” he said. “Get the fuck out of the circle.”
Dave was coughing. On his knees. Spit getting into his long hair.
Stepped forward, my eyes wet with hating.
“Get out,” Dave shouted at me.
Dave’s dad had his T-shirt off and was using it as a bandage. His muscled chest was covered in curly grey hair. “He’s free to end this,” he said. “All he has to do is step out of the circle.”
“Get out,” Dave spoke the words again, getting back on his feet, but slowly. “Just leave us.”
Tried to find his eyes through the shadow of his lowered forehead. Dave had turned himself off, numbed and darkened and braced for the pain to come. He got back into stance and once more faced his dad, so I lowered my knife and stepped back out, leaving Dave to get the shit kicked out of him.
He fought as well as he could that night in the Richelieu bush, but he was too weakened to contend with the thick muscled asshole that was his crazy dad. The fight was over when Dave curled up in a ball on the edge of the circle, just over the line. He’d gone down for the last time and rolled over there, staying perfectly still while his old man counted to ten. And my insides were curled up too, twisted
into a throbbing fist. His dad picked up his jacket and put it on over his bare chest, the yellowed T-shirt still tight around his wound. He lit a smoke, glanced down at Dave.
“Thanks for the souvenir,” he said to me, looking up and lifting his injured arm.
“My pleasure, really,” I said. “So I guess we trade now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tooth for the boots.”
Laugh was low and from the chest. “You can have those fucking boots,” he said.
Reached into my pocket and felt around for the tooth. Palm open, I held it out for him to claim.
But he stayed still.
“Go on, take it,” I said.
His lunatic grin was wide enough I saw the big black gap Dave had made. “I never wanted that thing. Just some make-believe shit he had in his head, a hallucination. I told him to stay away from LSD.”
Was all an acid dream, I thought, turned into a nightmare and then gone real for all of us. And so we’d played along, knowing it or not.
“He can keep it. To remember me by. How he once was my kid, but not anymore.”
Then he turned his broad back and disappeared into the bush, leaving the boots behind. And me, I just stood there, tooth in my hand, Dave at my feet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Hotel Break-Heart. Best rates in beautiful downtown Memphis.
NEVER SEEN SO MUCH SUNLIGHT. DRIES OUT ALL THE DISEASE. FOUND OUR RIGHT ROAD at Nashville. The stranger and the kid, the kid and the stranger, they pick up Interstate 40. They take a motel room, just to be easy on the poor old kid. Watch TV. The baby rolls around on the floor, stretches its limbs, getting acquainted with motion, mobility, the elasticity of its plumping muscles, a life beyond the confines of cribs, cabs, compartments. The stranger drinks beer and eats hamburgers bought at a 7-Eleven just down the road they’re on, leading straight into Memphis. The stranger got some jars of baby food for the kid, and, before digging into beer and burgers, holds the baby close and with a plastic spoon, feeds it some mashed carrots and peas. The stranger kisses the baby’s warm head, speaking to it softly, saying things freely. The kid spits out most of the baby food, so the stranger gives it some bread and some of the burger patty instead, followed by the bottle filled with breast milk back in Nashville.