by Darren Groth
“She lives in Vancouver—”
“A ‘she’! She’s a woman!”
“Yes, Perry, she’s a woman. She would like to meet up with us when we come back from Seattle.”
“What’s her name?”
“That’s not something you need to know.”
“I do need to know. I get nervous being introduced to strangers. If I know her name, she won’t be as much of a stranger and I won’t be as nervous.”
“It’s not something you need to know right now.”
“Later?”
“Yes, later.”
“When?”
Justine takes a deep breath. “When the time is right, Pez.”
“I get nervous being introduced to strangers. If I know her name, she won’t be as much of a stranger and I won’t be as nerv—”
“Okay, okay. Let’s say on the drive back from Seattle. How’s that?”
I think it over for eleven seconds. “Okay.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not going to ask me about it every half hour for the next few days?”
“No.”
“You can handle the suspense?”
“I’ve got Ogopogo to keep my mind busy,” I say. “And I can think about the visit to Bruce Lee’s grave in Seattle too.”
“Okay. Good.”
I can see Justine feels calmer now. The muscles in her jaw are soft again. The flush in her cheeks is changing from red to pink. She walks to the breakfast counter and pulls a bottle out of a brown paper bag.
“Speaking of your sea monster, I managed to find where he lives.”
I am confused until she places the bottle in my hands and points to the label. There’s a small painting of some land with trees and surrounding water and a mountain in the background. The text in the center says:
Ogopogo’s Lair Pinot Grigio
“Mystery solved,” says Justine. “He hangs out in a bottle of white.”
I begin to giggle because my sister is giggling. Then it becomes a full-on laugh because I get an image in my brain of the creature in a lake full of wine, swimming and hiccupping and singing “Last Train to Gaythorne” the way Dad used to when he’d had a few “ten-ounce sandwiches.”
And the uncomfortable idea of meeting a stranger in Vancouver becomes separate and harmless, like a spider trapped in a glass jar.
THE BEST DAY SO FAR of our North American adventure has arrived. I am wearing boardies and a T-shirt. I’ve put on my floppy hat and sunscreen. My backpack has snacks and water and the Rush Hour DVD and my stuffed Ogopogo. I have Justine’s digital camera, which also shoots video.
It was difficult waiting for today. Yesterday did not go as quickly as I would’ve liked. The night before, Justine put together a map of all the different Ogopogo fakes—statues and fountains and paintings and plaques—that people have done for tourists. After breakfast we drove to Kelowna to see them all.
First, we saw a fountain in a park. The monster was greenish-brown, had the head/two humps/tail, and its snout looked like it belonged to a hippopotamus. Water shot out of its ears and head. I doubt this is accurate or true to life. Next, we saw a giant painting that someone had done on the side of a building. It was probably the best and most interesting art of the day. The creature was drawn as a good mix of dinosaur and sea serpent, and the picture showed it chewing on plants beneath the surface of the lake. In the afternoon we went to a tiny beach in Kelowna, close to the bridge crossing Okanagan Lake. At the children’s water park, there were two “play” statues—I didn’t like them. One was a large green head with climbing ropes all over it and a long red tongue hanging from its mouth. I don’t know what the artist was thinking, but to me it was gross. You didn’t have to use much imagination to see the tongue as a trail of blood, or to think hunters had cut the head off Ogopogo’s dead body and left it there for the seagulls. The other statue wasn’t gross—it was just a bit blah. The body was okay, the same as the fountain—head/two humps/tail—but the face looked like it belonged to a King Charles spaniel. And the big chunky tongue was something you would see in the meat section of a grocery store rather than any proper book on Ogopogo.
When we came back to the Janet Beedle Peachland house, Justine asked me if I had enjoyed the day. I didn’t want to say it was meh, so I told her it had made me more excited for our boat tour of the lake tomorrow. And now the next day is here. I’m trying to be calm and collected. I’m squeezing my fists tight and rolling my shoulders, feeling the weight of the backpack. The data this morning was off the charts. I don’t have the seismometer here with me for the boat ride, but I know it would still be showing instability. I can feel it in my feet. It’s as if I’m walking fast on an asphalt road in summer and it’s getting hotter and hotter with each step. No lie, something is set to happen.
Something good, I reckon.
THE BOAT FOR OUR TOUR—THE Kathleen Rita, according to the fancy writing on the bow—looks old and has peeling paint. The captain is standing on the dock as we approach, his back to us, head forward. He turns when he hears our footsteps, but his head remains down. He’s reading a magazine. We stop a meter in front of him and wait for him to look up, but he keeps reading. Ten seconds go by. I grab the three fingers of Justine’s right hand and squeeze. I was uneasy drawing near, but now I’m a little bit annoyed. He’s ignoring us! What gives?! Justine squeezes back and it helps take my mind off the man’s bad manners. I think about the soft, fluffy, yellow belly of the Ogopogo stuffed toy in my backpack.
“Hi. You wouldn’t happen to be Clinton Muckler?” asks Jus.
The man closes the magazine and holds it in front of his belt buckle. The title of the magazine is Soap Opera Weekly. The subheadings are 3 Huge Secrets Exposed! and Baby Revealed! and Shocking Seduction! The exclamation points are like cymbal clashes in my brain. More seconds pass.
“I am, ma’am,” the man replies, smiling.
Clinton Muckler is large—not fat, just big in all the parts of his body. His teeth are the size of piano keys. He’s wearing a cap that has Boston Bruins written on it and wraparound sunglasses that help sailors keep the glare out of their eyes. There is a tattoo of an eagle and an anchor and some numbers on his right forearm. A long pink scar shaped like a banana stretches from just under his left knee to the top of his ankle.
“I believe we’ve booked your services, yes?” says Justine.
More seconds pass, and Clinton Muckler doesn’t say anything. He rolls his head from side to side and makes grunting noises in his throat. This is bad behavior. To not answer someone when they’ve asked you a question very nicely—that’s so inappropriate. Why would he do this? What is his reason? Is he trying to make us scared? Angry? Is this his stupid idea of fun? If it is, then he is a bad guy—the sort of person Dad would’ve called a “rolled-gold asshole.”
And, suddenly, I’m thinking the best day so far of our North American adventure could become the worst. It’s not fair that rude individuals can spoil things like that. I realize no one can force you to feel things, good or bad. You are responsible for the actions of your hands and the words from your mouth and the feelings in your heart. Dad used to tell me: If you go through life finding fault in others, you’ll end up in a world of one. He said we need the people around us—warts and all—and I understand this much better now that I’m older.
At Fair Go I will be on my own, but I will need help with some of the tasks—cooking and sewing and maintenance around my place and the farming jobs they get all residents to do. And the help I need will come from the people around me. But Fair Go is not the same as planet Earth, and not all people are helpers. Some are rolled-gold assholes. They kick your basketball away in the school playground or they move when you sit next to them on the train or they drop cigarettes into your sponge bucket at the car wash or they call you a spaz and a retard. It’s very difficult to be responsible and pretend bad people’s faults are invisible. And if you have more bad people around you
than good, you might even begin to think a world of one is okay.
I am ready to say we can find another boat to hire. I take a tighter hold of Justine’s fingers. Then Mr. Muckler speaks.
“Yes, you on board my Kathleen Rita for the day, Ms. Richter. Very nice to meet you. And this strong fella must be Perry.”
He holds out his hand. My right hand keeps gripping the strap of my backpack. After a while he lowers his hand. I can see in my peripheral vision that Justine is giving me a gruff look.
“Sorry about that,” she says, keeping her eyes locked on me. “Perry’s not great with introductions. He has a brain condition that can cause him to feel anxious or upset in different places and circumstances. He has trouble with people—mixing with them and communicating with them—and it sometimes results in inappropriate behaviors. I appreciate your understanding and patience.”
Often, when Justine tells people the spiel, they say something quickly afterward like I’m so sorry or That’s so sad or I didn’t realize. Not Clinton Muckler. There’s another long pause. More grunting noises come from his throat. He takes off his sunglasses and hangs them on the front of his collar.
“Perry, your sister’s email said you got a real interest in Ogopogo.”
I know he’s looking to make eye contact, but I don’t want to. I focus on his tattoo. “That is correct.”
“I bet you know a lot about him.”
“Yes, I do. I have done a lot of research.”
“I bet you have, I bet you have…And you’re from Australia, huh?”
“Yes.”
“I bet you’re one of the few Aussies who’s heard about Ogopogo, huh?”
I don’t want to have a conversation with a rude individual, even if Ogopogo is the subject. Jus is still giving me the hairy eyeball, though. I stiffen and imagine I am washing away his tattoo with my car-wash sponge.
“I’m guessin’ you know some of the famous sightings,” says Muckler after another round of grunts. “The places on the lake we’re gonna see—you prob’ly be able to tell me what happened before I can flap my gums. But there’s a few sightin’s you don’ know about.” He runs his tongue over his bottom lip and leans closer. “Mine.”
“Yours?”
“Yessir.”
“You’ve seen Ogopogo.”
“Yessir. More than a few times, in actual fact.”
I look at Jus. The tough face is gone, replaced by one I can’t easily read. Her eyes are bugged and her eyebrows are arched upward. Her lips are pulled into a straight line, like a stretched elastic band. She’s not looking at Clinton Muckler, the person who has the surprising information. She’s still staring at me.
“You don’ believe me, Perry?” he says, directing his gaze toward the lake. “You wouldn’ be alone in thinkin’ that. Lotta people in these parts figure I might be a bit…left field with what I seen. A little off base with my perception. Don’ get me wrong—they believe I seen somethin’. Current perhaps. Debris. Wake from a Jet Ski passed by. But the monster? The legendary beast? Nah, couldn’t really be that. Not when the eyes belong to a brain-fried vet.”
I can’t see my own face, but I’m sure it has a shocked look. “Brain-fried…You are…? Does that mean you are disabled?”
Clinton Muckler grunts and rubs his neck. He takes off the Boston Bruins cap, revealing a grayed crew cut. There is a scar on his head—not banana shaped like the one on his leg, but zigzagged like a traced outline of a tectonic plate slip. A wound like that would’ve used all of the bandages in my first-aid kit at home.
“Got m’self a bad blow during the first Gulf War. Scalped me and then some. Bad business. Came home to a medical discharge, pension. After I’d rehabbed, I figured I’d do some adventurin’ with the money. I could still drive okay so long as I wasn’t actin’ like Dale Earnhardt and I didn’t drive at night. So I got m’self a Winnebago and traveled ’round.”
He stops for a bit, poking his chin out. I get a picture in my mind of words caught in his throat like fish bones.
“First my home state, Idaho,” he continues. “Then back and forth cross the States, then up into Canada. When I got to the Okanagan, I stayed put. Fell in love with the place. The people, the lake, the desert hills. I figured the desert owed me a little somethin’ after what happened in Iraq. An’ I fell in love with Ogopogo. The real beast, but also the idea of him too.” He laughs and runs his hand over his tattoo, as if he’s rubbing sunscreen into it. “So, now me and Kathleen Rita putter up an’ down the lake, keepin’ the good ol’ boy company. It’s a good life. Slow an’ reality-free. The way I need it to be.”
A second image pops into my head—one in which Clinton Muckler is working at Troy’s Car Care. His bucket of water has many cigarettes floating on the surface. Each cigarette has my name printed on it. I dig my fingernails into my thigh and the image fades.
He turns back and smiles at Jus, then at me. “You have trouble with people—mixin’ with them and communicatin’ with them? I got that sort o’ trouble too, only with words and thoughts. Takes me a little longer to get ’em makin’ sense. Mainly goin’ in, sometimes comin’ out.” He moves a bit closer. I smell bacon and turpentine. “But I’ll swear to the good Lord on high, there’s nothin’ wrong with my eyes. How ’bout yours, Perry?”
“My eyesight is excellent.”
“I bet it is. I bet you see things real good.”
He puts his cap back on his head and extends his arm toward the Kathleen Rita. Instead of stepping onto the boat, I take Clinton Muckler’s outstretched hand and pump it three times. I thought he was a rolled-gold asshole. I didn’t say it out loud though—I only thought it. But apologizing is still the right thing to do.
“I believe you’ve seen Ogopogo. And I’m sorry I didn’t shake your hand before.”
Clinton Muckler grunts, nods. Although I’m not familiar with reading his face, I’m pretty sure his look means he understands.
MY SISTER KNOWS I LIKE to give expert ear bashings about Ogopogo. Today, for eight hours, it is my ear being bashed. We travel partway up the 135-kilometer lake, seeing places where the creature has been spotted. It’s exciting building a catalog of pictures in my mind and on Justine’s digital camera. I snap all the stops: the place of the first recorded sighting by a white person—Mrs. Susan Allison—in 1872; the path of the Miller and Marten couples’ motorboat, which the monster followed for three minutes in 1959; the 2004 location of John Casorso’s houseboat when it was shaken up by a strange disturbance, leading to fifteen minutes of video footage and an article in the local newspaper.
Clinton Muckler is an excellent guide, adding interesting information to the facts I have learned through my own research. He talks about the famous 1978 eyewitness account of a man named Bill Steciuk. (I am familiar with his website and his title of “Legend Hunter.” I also know he is trying to gain proof of the monster with modern equipment such as sonar and thermal imaging.) Clinton says the sighting was actually shared by twenty other motorists who, like Mr. Steciuk, had stopped on the west side of the Kelowna Bridge. He also mentions that the crowd watched the monster swimming around for nearly one minute.
Just as interesting as the extra information is its effect on Clinton Muckler. He speaks clearly and at an even pace. There are very few grunts or long pauses. He answers questions without needing to concentrate. Expert ear-bashing has the same effect on him as it does on me—it makes us calm and comfortable. It helps lessen the brain hassles in activities like going to the shopping center or standing in line at a restaurant or being a passenger on a crowded bus. Late in the day, Clinton Muckler talks about his own close encounters. No lie, he’s had seventeen sightings in all, each one in and around Rattlesnake Island, visible to the town of Peachland. It is believed that Ogopogo lives in the Squally Point caves below our boat.
“Have you ever filmed or photographed any of them?” asks Jus.
“Nope,” Clinton replies, shrugging his shoulders. “I know what I know. Don’ need a video
to tell me that. Don’ need to show anythin’ to the rest o’ the world either. What other people think is up to them.” He turns to me and points to the camera hanging over my wrist. “How ’bout you, Perry? You wanna capture the beast on film? Become a big-time celebrity, like the ones I see in Soap Opera Weekly?”
The question is unexpected, and the answer is not simple. Immediately, my heart jumps and my palms begin to sweat. I scrunch fists for a few seconds, curl toes inside my runners.
“Before my father died,” I say, “I told him I would take care of Justine. I promised I would do something amazing one day so he wouldn’t have to worry about us. I have a few ideas. One is to take the first proper photograph of the Loch Ness Monster and sell it to Yahoo! When I return home to Brisbane, I am going to live in the Fair Go Community Village, so I don’t think we’ll be going to Scotland anytime soon.”
“I see. So, Ogopogo would be just as good, yeah?”
“He’s not as well known, but I think proof of his existence would be worth a lot of money.”
Clinton Muckler nods. He leans against the side rail of the Kathleen Rita and scratches his unshaven chin. “If you don’ mind me askin’…When did your daddy pass?”
I don’t mind. The answer is a date—an easy fact to recall. And if I picture it circled on a calendar, I don’t think so much about Dad being sick in bed or crying at night or the funeral where his body was burned to ashes and scattered over Rainbow Beach. “Twenty-ninth of September, 2008.”
“Just before our eighteenth birthdays,” adds Justine.
The quiver in her voice is a light slap across my face. She takes my hand, and I release the breath held in my chest.