by Méira Cook
Across the field I hear the rattle, tock, tock of my kid’s famous left-foot strike. Mostly he gets the ball between the posts but sometimes the ball flicks off the crossbar and a couple of times it bends so far wide of the mark that I have to whistle through my teeth. Once, when a horse called Automaton came in at twenty-five to one, and we were all sitting around stunned, my boss said he’d seen it before with three-year-old bays.
“You can never tell with a redhead,” he said.
Frankie looks up so I wave, but the afternoon sun is in his eyes. I think I see him smile his curt smile but there’s something in my eyes too and I can’t be certain. Then Frankie turns away and steadies the ball with his cleats. Patient as ever, he jogs back a couple of feet to allow himself to take a running start.
Eleven
A House on Magnolia Street
Visiting her father was a short trip down the highway and twenty years into the past. When Bernie pulled up, she noticed that the house on Magnolia Street had a shuttered look, which might have had to do with the fact that the storm windows were finally up and the blinds were still drawn and had been, she would lay odds, since the last time she’d visited her father. Mostly, though, it was the look of mourning that sometimes settled over a house when the person who’d loved it most was gone. This was a theory she’d been working on that took into account the Binders’ house next door, as well as her own. In different ways, both houses looked forlorn and unkempt, their shoulders hunched against the cold.
On the other hand, her perception might just have been a consequence of the weather (November), the time (too early), the place (too late), or, most likely, the uneasy combination of melancholy and anticipatory dread that always beset her on the drive to her father’s house. The drive over, the drive back. Never home.
When Bernie first left home and the Heights, she’d gone as far away as she reasonably could, which wasn’t nearly as far as she would have liked but was at least outside the city limits, to a ruined nunnery once run by the Sisters of Mercy. A group of her friends were trying to restore the place. Their plan was to farm a little, raise chickens, buy a goat, become self-sufficient. Her father found it hilarious that his daughter had finally ended up in a nunnery, a nod to what he’d have called her “promiscuous ways” and her mother’s perverse insistence on naming their daughter after a Catholic saint.
“Maybe you’ll have one of those holy visions,” he joked. “You were always a fanciful kid.”
Saint Bernadette, he meant.
In fact, her mother’s people had mostly been Catholic, beginning with their forcible conversion by Jesuits coming into the Great Lakes in the wake of the voyageurs-turned-settlers. Bernie had first learnt the word Métis in a high school social studies class, and when she’d worked up the courage to ask her mother, Theresa had said, “More like half Métis, honey,” then laughed in that open-hearted way she had: head thrown back and devil take the hindermost. Given what she took to be her mother’s secrecy, Bernie had grown skittery about her religion, her identity, and her place in a world that seemed to require endless visions and revisions. Somehow her mother could live without declaring herself, her selving, but Bernie needed a border around her quivery, soft-boned self.
In the end the mystery, as far as Bernie was concerned, was why so many of the Revoir family had remained Catholic. For as long as she could remember, her mother had always referred to herself as lapsed. Not so much fallen as falling, perpetually and forever. Perhaps it was Theresa’s way of retaining her hold on the old religion, however tenuously, however perversely. If so, it was a position that her daughter might have sympathized with if she had not mistaken the word her mother had used.
Lapsed. The gentle murmur of waves. And since Bernie had no wish to spend her life lapping gently on the edges of some distant shore, she renounced her mother’s religion along with her given name. She was Bernie now, just Bernie. And she was nobody’s saint.
These days it seemed that whenever she visited, the old man was on the phone with someone from Elk River, Minnesota, or Bronxville, New York, or Taddlecreek, Diddlysquat, for all she knew. Today, when she let herself in through the screen door, her dad was canted back expansively in his chair, his bare feet with their hair-scribble toes and cheese-rind nails propped on the kitchen table. A heh-heh look on his face.
“Nope,” he said into the receiver. “You heard me right first time, old timer.”
“No more moose this year,” he said. “Wolves must’ve ate ’em.”
“Wolves are fierce this year,” he confirmed. “But at least they’re keeping the population down. Moose-wise, I mean.”
“Yup, yup. Circle of life kind of thing. Trouble is —” The old man swung his feet off the kitchen table so Bernie knew he was about to launch into the grand finale: “Trouble is, who’s gonna take down the wolves now?”
Grinning like a Halloween pumpkin all lit up by trickery, Riley Tergusson gave his daughter a double thumbs-up, his ear still cocked solicitously over the receiver. Halloween was a week past and all the pumpkins in the neighbourhood resembled slow-leaking inner tubes, as if the bonhomie and high spirits initiated by a week-long sugar high were finally beginning to seep away. The constant rain didn’t help either, dripping from the trees and the eaves, uttering little hissing sounds as it fell, adding to the general sense of universal deflation.
“Good morning, Bernadette,” her father said, making the sign of the cross or his cockeyed version of it. This habitual greeting was meant as an homage to his late wife, to Theresa, but, as with all things Riley Tergusson–related, it was more like a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.
On the table beside her father was a mug of “regular unleaded,” recently poured from a machine called Mr. Coffee. It seemed to Bernie that her dad lived an increasingly denotative life, as if old age required constant reminders, introductions to one’s appliances in the name of courtesy or the effort to waylay dementia. The coffee machine was still breathing stertorously into the last inch of coffee sludge at the bottom of the carafe.
“Fill ’er up,” said her dad, handing Bernie a mug and motioning for her to pour herself a slug.
The coffee mug was printed with the phrase: “That’s What She Said!” Bernie recognized it as a novelty item from the gas station’s “Collect all Six” range of bawdy ceramic ware. Oddly, the word Said was picked out in red lettering, as if the manufacturers, having thrown in their lot with prurience, were regretting their hasty decision. Really? She said that?
Her father had drunk regular unleaded all his life but was finicky about the type of gas he chose for his beloved Chevrolet pickup. “Old Gal,” he called her at times, and “Chevy Chase,” at other times. Named for that fellow with the dent in his chin, he took the trouble to explain. Not Spartacus, the other one.
In honour of the Old Gal, Tergusson claimed not only to have watched the entire Chevy Chase oeuvre but also to have memorized all eight minutes and thirty-three seconds of “American Pie.” Bernie had no cause to doubt him on the first of these claims, and nothing but an overpowering desire to divert him on the second. Tergusson and his Chevy: it was a buddy movie, a love story for all time, a ballad about a man and his horse in the absence, strictly, of either. Bernie’s mother had always declined to ride in the pickup, complaining that she felt ignored, although she never explained which of the two — man or machine — had excluded her, had made her feel like a fifth wheel, she’d said with a straight face.
Instead she walked when she could and caught the bus when she needed to. The sight of Theresa waiting patiently in all kinds of weather for the 18 bus was a familiar sight in the neighbourhood. It was just one more way that Bernie’s parents failed to get along because the fact was Tergusson doted on his pickup. He insisted on Super Premium gas only because Super Duper Ultra Premium hadn’t yet been invented, supervised an oil change twice a year, and personally oversaw the annual spring tire rotat
ion. Come the whiff of bonfire smoke in the fall, come the first appearance of bulk boxes of Halloween candy at Costco, and her dad was already hauling the winter tires out of storage, kicking at them and running a speculative finger over the treads. Reminiscing about the days when they’d have to use tire chains just to reverse out of the driveway. “Black ice,” he’d say. “Don’t tell me about black ice.”
“Let’s see — that’s a ten four, buddy,” Tergusson was barking into the receiver.
“Nope, yup, nope,” he confirmed.
“That’s seven, seven, nine, zero,” he said, still grinning his crazed jack-o’-lantern grin and pretending to scribble something down on a pad, even going so far as to lick the tip of his non-existent pencil before completing his final flourish. He looked up at Bernie and gave his daughter a double wink, closing both eyes at the same time and squeezing his face into a rictus, then repeating the whole procedure: close squeeze grimace, close squeeze grimace. Had her father ever been able to wink one eye at a time, she wondered, or was this facial spasm — more reminiscent of palsy than roguish twinkle — the best he could do? She could no longer remember and there was no one left to ask.
Tergusson put his imaginary pencil behind his ear and listened intently for a moment. “Yup, that’s the correct number, all right. Congratulations on drawing a winner, sir, but I’m sorry to inform you that we’ve had to cancel the Moose Lottery this year. Whoa!”
Her dad yanked the phone away from his ear as if he was pulling taffy. At the same time he made a series of funhouse mirror faces in response to the squawking diatribe on the other end, by which Bernie intuited that the whoa! was inadvertent if not unsolicited.
“Got a live one on the line, kiddo,” he muttered. “Would you listen to this?” He swivelled the receiver in her direction, generously offering to share the caller’s tinny fury. Bernie waved him away as if to say, None for me thanks, I’ve had enough. As if to say, You go ahead, though. As if to say, Be my guest.
Tergusson shrugged and pulled the receiver to his own ear. He listened dreamily for a moment then snapped to and pointed accusingly at his daughter’s feet. He was indicating either that she had failed to remove her socks and must promptly do so, or that his daughter had gigantic feet, which was a crying shame but certainly not Riley Tergusson’s fault. Nosiree, Tergusson could not be blamed for the fact that his daughter had grown to Amazonian proportions, with feet to match. He, himself, was a size 8 (men’s narrow) and had been since his voice broke.
Unsurprisingly to anyone who knew him, Tergusson’s assessment of his daughter was oddly skewed. Yes, she had large feet but the rest of her was slim, even girlish. She had Theresa’s warm smile, a delicate yet pugnacious chin, and a shock of dark stand-up-ish hair that was cut short to make her look fierce but somehow only made her seem more fragile. However, Tergusson was adamant in his claim that his daughter was a lummox and this had been a constant of their relationship for as long as Bernie could remember.
“Rowing boats!” he’d exclaimed whenever the young girl had needed new shoes. “Are you descended from Labradors?”
“On your mother’s side,” he’d add. And yes, it was true that Theresa Tergusson had been blessed with large feet, both for her size and gender. She’d been a handsome woman with a comically warm smile abetted by dimples and an endearing gap between her front teeth. Her heart was the normal size for her body, her daughter supposed, but in all the ways that mattered — emotional, imaginative, metaphorical — it was by far her largest organ.
The caller, having poured his invective into the phone, duly slammed it down. Tergusson was free to let out a long, self-assessing whistle. “Jeez Louise, would you get a load of Fargo, North Dakota?”
“Moose Lottery been cancelled again?” Bernie said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her tone. Never having succeeded before was no excuse for not trying.
“You betcha, kid. Shitty day in Paul Bunyan Land.” Tergusson pointed at his daughter’s feet, snapped: “Off.” Her socks, he meant, and not her feet, she assumed.
The reasons — gleaned by Bernie over the years — to account for Riley Tergusson’s hatred of socks were manifold. They itched, they confined, they compressed. They caused the foot to sweat, to swell, to stink. Secretly anarchic, they concealed themselves in the lint catchers of oversize dryers, waiting their chance to escape, to disappear into a nappy limbo of unmatched socks. It was well known that socks were promiscuous and uncommitted, declining to mate for life.
“They don’t toe the line, heh heh,” he’d once confided.
Since his retirement from his job selling advertising space for a men’s fashion magazine, her father was always looking for a slogan he could live by. Tergusson’s image of the afterlife was of a mountain of socks in which the recently dead were obliged to rummage forever. Searching, in vain, for what they had lost on earth.
Get your rocks off! Take your socks off!
Further reasons for Tergusson’s lifelong disdain of men’s hosiery included the following: discomfort, dismay, formality, and in certain cases, death. He did not trouble to explain this final dire outcome but pointed out, instead, that dry socks caused electric shocks, wet socks caused pneumonia, and all socks made a man look like a pussy — a sock-wearing, white-pawed, son-of-a-bitch goddamn pussy.
Since socks were sold in inconvenient yet cunningly packaged bulk sets of three or six, and occasionally five, it proved impossible for Tergusson to purchase a week’s worth of socks, although the outlandish mathematics of dividing seven days into multiples of three or six, and occasionally five, did not prevent him from trying.
“Always too much or too little,” Tergusson would mourn, the Goldilocks standard forever eluding him. “Why is that?” he’d demand of his old crony, Milt Johnson.
But Milt, whom Tergusson had nicknamed “Second Floor” because he’d been a purveyor of men’s clothing and apparel, always claimed ignorance of the nefarious world of men’s hosiery. It didn’t matter. Tergusson required an audience rather than an answer to his questions, which were, in any case, rhetorical, insoluble, and verging on the existential.
White socks were for kids, he’d inform Milt. On the other hand, black socks emasculated a man unless he removed them first, heh heh. And as for stripes, checks, and diamond patterns, Tergusson remained scornful. They made his feet look big, he claimed.
Bring the world to heel. Go sockless, young man!
The primary characteristic of socks, Tergusson liked to conclude, all makes and sizes and patterns, all colours and mixtures and percentages of Lycra to cotton, was their tendency to wear out in the heel. A consideration not mitigated by the fact that the womanly art of darning had been lost to the ages. Bernie’s mother being the exception, Bernie the rule.
By the time she’d peeled off her socks and laid them on the radiator to dry, her father was dialling another number, peering nearsightedly at the pad in front of him yet scorning to pull his spectacles down from where they balanced, insect eyed, on top of his head. The reasons why Tergusson hated spectacles were as thorough-going and comprehensive, although more forcefully expressed, as his intolerance of socks. It was certainly a more perverse prejudice since — declining eyesight or not, glaucoma and macular degeneration and persistent black floaters notwithstanding — Riley Tergusson drove his Chevy to the levee most days, and twice on Sundays when the Legion Hall opened its doors at midday for their weekly veteran’s lunch buffet that always included two types of Jell-O salad and some form of marshmallow-enhanced side dish.
Bernie had once asked her dad if he actually was a veteran but if she thought to trip up the old man with this cunningly phrased question, she was mistaken.
“Not per se,” Tergusson had replied. “I’m more what you might call a ‘veteran of life.’”
Her father, having finally squinted his way through the chicken-scratch pencil markings on his notepad and dialled his number, wa
s listening, aggrieved, to the mechanical wind-back of an old-fashioned answering machine.
“Leave a message at the sound of the tone,” he muttered, then, perking up at the promised tone, he cleared his throat: “State of Maine, Department of Licensing here. I’m returning your call regarding hunting and fishing permits for the coming season.” Tergusson would always pause at this point, presumably for effect.
“Unfortunately, all available permits have already been claimed,” he’d continue, contriving to sound regretful.
“Better luck next year and remember, the early bird gets the moose,” he’d sometimes add. Then he’d pause once again, pretending to reconsider. But no, the law was the law. “Have a nice day and don’t forget to floss,” he’d say.
“Et voilà!” he turned to Bernie. “Suck it, West Paducah, Kentucky.”
Tergusson was nothing if not a showman but lately he’d been drawing out his effective pauses to improbable lengths. His effective pauses had become pregnant pauses, and Bernie feared that her father’s late trimester comic timing was in danger of exceeding the gestation period of meaningful satire.
She asked Tergusson if he thought he was being fair. It was one thing to deny hunting licenses and fishing permits to blunt-thumbed Midwesterners who misdialled the long-distance code on a regular basis. It was another matter entirely to take the trouble to phone these beleaguered fools expressly to deny them the hunting and fishing rights it was their constitutional privilege to exercise.
The fact was it was no one’s fault, and Tergusson’s sheer cussed good fortune that the phone number he’d had for years exactly corresponded to the new customer service line at the State of Maine Licensing Department. The area code was different, of course, but only by one number, the number in question being situated directly below the other on the keypad. As a result, chez Tergusson had become the favoured dial-up destination of hasty-fingered Americans from every state in the Union, on the prowl for hunting and fishing permits, who would find their way, via fibre optic cable, electronic switchboard, and blessed human error, to what they would no doubt have considered an obscure province in an unimaginable country floating somewhere above their own. It was a mug’s game.