by Lee Gowan
“I don’t give a damn for pleasin’ my son, and I’m not find-in’ this little guessin’ game the least bit amusin’. I know from past experiences you’re not keen on havin’ your life threatened, and that’s really not what I want either. I’d just as soon be on my way and let you get back to your television program. So why don’t you just tell me where my horse is, and we’ll get out of your hair.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The boys are standing there staring, and I must admit that I’d just as soon I hadn’t brought them, ’cause now they both look about ready to poop their pants, which would not be a bit of help. Anyway, what are they likely to learn from this little circus?
Self-control. So far, I have shown great self-control. Maybe now we could work on their numbers. “What about … say if I were to give you until the count of three? Would that help you remember?”
“Pleeeeease!” the Chinaman starts sobbing like a baby. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Three. It’s the number after two. Which is the number after one. I’ll start with one. Is that clear enough? One …”
“Pleeeeeeeeease!”
“Two.”
“Grandpa!” Vern yells. I glance over at him, and he shuffles and looks at the floor, shrugging his shoulders. “Dad sold Nitro to the meat packers.”
For a minute I actually forget what comes after “two,” and by the time I remember I realize it’s too late for anything as imprecise as numbers.
“It’s true, Grandpa,” the small one answers the question my tongue can’t get itself around. “The meat packers. Mr. Chong doesn’t have him.”
There’s a high ceiling in this barn, and I hear the boy’s words as though they’re coming from a long way off and they’re meant for someone else. Those kind of words. Like when I was a boy and came walking home from school and into the house and saw the neighbour woman sitting at the table with the minister, and the neighbour woman was looking at the table, and I said, “Are ya vistin’ my mom, Mrs. Bell?” and she nodded her head, and the Minister said to me, “Your father’s gone, Sam,” and I wondered where he could be off to, because he hadn’t been planning on going anywhere when I left for school in the morning. Not that I knew of, at least. And the neighbour woman said, “Your father’s had a terrible accident,” and she started to tell me about how his horse had thrown him and a steer had managed to catch him with a horn right in the throat. “Don’t tell me. I don’t wanna know,” I said, but she told me anyhow.
I haven’t thought of that for a long, long time.
The meat packers.
I didn’t want to know, but he told me anyhow.
The boys are both looking at me, waiting to hear what I’ll have to say next, I suppose, but what can I say? I’m the fool. I’m the one who came here to learn something. They were the ones who had something to teach me. And I am truly ashamed of my ignorance, and they can see it in the look on my stupid face, so I turn and stumble out the door of the barn and into the blowing snow and off towards the road, where I’m hoping I can find an appropriate spot to lay down and die.
The small one had it right. It is damned cold.
JUNE 29th, 2000: SASKATOON
THANK GOODNESS for air conditioning. I remember my former assistant, Greg Turnball, telling me over the phone, with an awkward significance that suggested he might be talking about some relative of mine, that the hotel had been bought and redone by a Japanese company. The appointments look very expensive, very Victorian. Last night, I took a shower, smoked a cigarette while watching a game show, turned it off and lay down diagonally across the king-sized bed, staring across the room at a print of Van Gogh’s sunflowers. The air conditioning hummed, the sheets were clean and cool. I turned off the light and must have fallen asleep almost immediately.
I dreamed I was driving down a prairie road in my Toyota. Not the rented Toyota, but my old rusted one. My father was there. He was my passenger, but he told me he wanted to drive because there was something he had to show me. My father doesn’t drive. Besides, the wheel felt good in my hands, and I was thinking that the last thing in the world I’d want was for him to be driving. The next thing I knew he was. We were still in my Toyota, but he was driving and I was in the passenger seat. I wanted to tell him to stop, but all I could do was stare out at the prairie. There was something menacing about the endless rolling Plains now that I was a passenger. There was a drum beating somewhere, and it kept getting louder. I was worried my father was driving too fast over that rutted earth. My dear old car needed to be treated more gently. If it broke down, we’d never find our way back to civilization. The sameness of the landscape unnerved me. Just that rolling prairie and the road running straight to the end of it, right into the sky. I wondered what it could mean, what it was trying to say to me, or sing to me, because there was still that drumming coming from all around.
And then an army of horsemen appeared across the entire horizon.
“Never,” my father said.
And the road dropped away, and the earth opened up and swallowed us.
The phone was ringing. Reaching out blindly, I picked up the receiver, dragged it to my ear, and was greeted by a voice saying, “Ai, Lance Taves here. Can you have lunch with Jerry and Jim and I and then be ready to show us some locations afterwards?”
I glanced at the clock. It was almost seven. “I … guess. Couldn’t you give me until after dinner, at least? He’d probably like to see it at magic hour.”
“No. Not tonight. Got a big dinner with the government people tonight. What’s wrong with after lunch?”
“Well, for one thing, I checked out the barn and it won’t work. I’m going to have to find something else. Aspen’ll be furious if we take him there.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“The century. It’s twentieth century.”
“Early twentieth century?”
“Early to mid.”
“What do you expect? This is Saskatchewan. There wasn’t anything here but Indians before that.”
“Are you gonna tell that to Aspen?”
“You’re the locations manager. We’ll meet you in the lobby at noon.”
And he hung up.
I collapsed back onto my pillow and lay there for awhile, trying to collect myself. The dream would not leave me. The final moment came floating back as though I was still sleeping—the drumming, the horsemen on the horizon, my father opening his mouth to speak that single word, the earth opening—and I had to sit up and stare hard at the Van Gogh to make it go away.
I showered, dressed and took the complimentary newspaper down to the restaurant, where I now sit, trying to distract myself from that dream.
The coffee could be worse. I have a booth by the window, where I can glance from my paper and omelette out at the river valley and watch the joggers trot by. There are a few families down for breakfast, readying for their daily adventure, but mostly solitary men and women march in, their shirts all too crisp, their suits looking too warm for the harsh sunlight already streaming through the windows. Though I should be completely distracted by the fact that I have to display the hidden secrets of Saskatchewan for James Aspen this afternoon, I can’t help thinking of my father at the breakfast table, his face buried in the newspaper as he drank his coffee, the cigarette at his lips. Sometimes—not often—he would actually speak to Mom, telling her about some story in the paper he felt she needed to know about, some new horror or medical discovery.
I’ll call Mom to see how he’s doing before I go blindly off in search of barns. It’ll be late morning in Toronto.
My kingdom for a cigarette.
I put my room number on the bill and am about to go outside for that smoke when I see an old man wearing a wine-coloured cardigan shuffle in on the heels of a waitress. He actually has a fishing fly in his orange cap, and he scans the room, seemingly delighted by the beige shade of the carpet, the arabesques on the Plexiglas dividers that sep
arate the booths, the tag of the waitress’s shirt standing up against the back of her neck. He might be a small-town grandfather on holiday to visit one of his impossibly successful children. He might be, except that I recognize the face. It is James Aspen.
When the waitress passes again, I order a third cup of coffee. Across the floor, the great man studies his menu. The look of concentration on his face suggests that he is trying to extract some secret meaning from what is written there. Benedict. Freshly squeezed. Whole grain. When he looks up, he catches me looking at him, and before I can glance away he is struggling to his feet and crossing to my table.
“You’re the woman—the locations scout, aren’t you?”
I am so taken aback I can’t speak.
“Jerry took me to your show in L.A. That series of self-portraits you did. You look just like your picture. Nice work. You’re a very gifted photographer, you know?”
“Ummm … thank you.”
“Yes. I told Jerry we should get you to shoot the picture, but he thought maybe we should get you to direct it. He said we have a good shooter, and what we really need is a director. That’s how deep in the weeds we are: that’s what he keeps telling me. The picture’s in a shambles. Whose idea was it to shoot exteriors up here in Canada? Yours, Jerry, I always have to remind him. Sixty cents buys a dollar, he kept telling me. He couldn’t deny the attraction of paying for trinkets with your cheap little dollar, especially when your government kept throwing in perks.”
“Well, we’re certainly honoured to have you, sir …”
“Sir? Don’t call me sir. I don’t deserve it. No one deserves it, but especially not an old sinner such as myself. Call me Jimmy. That’s what my friends call me. You’re a friend, aren’t you? You’d better be, because I tell Jerry you’re the most important person on this picture. Did you know that?”
“Pardon?”
“You see things. The whole world’s gone stone blind, but you can see things. At least, I see from your show that you can see yourself. And nobody likes to see themselves. That’s a curse. Must be a curse for you. I don’t blame you for trying to keep it a secret.”
“Pardon?”
“That’s why I had to have you. This is a western, and the real auteur of the western is the locations scout. I mean that. It’s a genre about a dry place where civilization’s just sending up a few green shoots. That’s why we need someone like you who can actually see the place. Who can actually see. ‘But what if it’s not even yours in the end?’ Jerry asked me. ‘If you insist on seeing it all through her eyes, the Asian woman’—that’s what Jerry calls you, ‘the Asian woman’—‘if you insist on seeing it through her eyes, then how will anyone even know it’s a James Aspen film?’ And I told him, good riddance. James Aspen is just an old sinner anyway, and he hasn’t said anything new since he told his father he should have smothered him in his sleep when he was a baby. I told my father that the day before he died. I told him he should have smothered me in my crib. And I feel better for it. I’ve felt free since I told him that. But I haven’t said anything new. Maybe that’s all freedom is: coming to terms with your own banality.”
“Do you want to sit down?”
“You don’t mind, do you? I don’t want to interrupt your morning reverie. Some people need a clear, disciplined morning to get them through the day. I used to be that way. Now I don’t even try. What’s the use pretending? The rats have built nests in all the workings so nothing turns in the proper direction anymore. You know what I mean?”
“I don’t mind at all. Jimmy.”
“Oh, that’s generous of you.” He slowly manoeuvres himself into the other side of the booth, and I wonder whether I should help him, but am still wondering when he’s finally settled himself. “Ahhhh, so that’s how things look from here. Nothing too surprising, which is just as well. At my age surprises are to be avoided. Are you really Asian? You could just as well be Cherokee.”
“My mother’s roots are Irish. My father’s Chinese. I’m pretty much Canadian.”
“I guess so,” he nods, not particularly interested. “What do you think of the script?”
I nod dumbly, trying to remember what I had decided was the best way of approaching the question if it came. “Well … it’s … I’m not …”
“Terrible, isn’t it? Carl’s usually very dependable. Distracted, I think. His wife just left him for another woman, which was something of a blow, as you can probably imagine. I told him I wanted a western, and he told me he’d write me the western to end all westerns, and I told him I’d already made that one. What I want to make is the western to begin all westerns. At my age you finally lose the morbid fascination with endings. It’s beginnings that attract you. I’d crawl right back into the womb if I could. Not yours. I’m not coming on to you, don’t worry. I’m too old for all that sweat and disappointment. So, I told him I wanted to make the western to begin all westerns, and he gave me this tired imitation of The Virginian. You know what I mean? He didn’t understand. I didn’t mean that I wanted to make all the same mistakes they made when they invented the thing. What I meant was that I wanted to resurrect the western. And you can’t have a resurrection without a crucifixion. Can you? It just can’t be done. But Jerry’s telling me the script’s just fine and the money’s ready to spend and we have to go ahead right now. So what do I do? I’m pleading with you. What do I tell Carl that’ll save this thing? Do you have a location I could give him that would get us off on the right foot? Something really … seminal?”
I nod my head, look at the table and take a deep breath. I think I’m blushing. “I just got here yesterday. They … Mr. Taves wasn’t expecting you so soon. I’ve never even been here before.”
“Really? So you’re saying you don’t know the place at all?”
“I … ummm … had a look around yesterday. It’s very beautiful.”
“Set eyes. That’s what they say in a western: ‘Yesterday was the first day I set eyes on the place.’” He sits back in his chair, crosses his arms and shakes his head. I hope there will be no shouting.
“Well, that’s good,” he finally says. “That’s what we need, is somebody who can see right back to the beginnings of this place. Before all the mistakes were made. That’s perfect.” He slides forwards again, leaning across the table towards me. “What did you see? How did it affect you?”
I am so surprised that I sit staring at him, considering his question, wondering if he is a little mad, or if this bizarre generosity is the real genius that allows him to control large groups of people so that they will help him to create great works of art. “It is … striking. The landscape. I had a nightmare about it last night.”
“You did? A nightmare. Really? That’s likely it. That’s likely what we’re looking for. Tell me your bad dream.”
His tone doesn’t sound sarcastic. I don’t know what else to do but tell him. He slides even farther forwards to the edge of his seat and sits there oohing and aahing through my halting recitation, the best audience I’ve ever had for any words I’ve ever spoken. When I’m finished, he stares up at the ceiling, shaking his head as though he has never been so moved.
“Just opened up and swallowed you. And your dad. Your dad was there with you. ‘Never.’ One of those straight-as-an-arrow prairie roads, running across the flat plain, running right up until it meets the pure blue sky, and then, before you can get there, you and your dad, before you can float off into the beautiful and terrible void, a whole tribe of Injuns appears on the horizon, and the earth magically opens up and takes you back inside. That’s it! That’s our location!”
He takes the slice of toast I never touched and bites into it.
“But doesn’t it sound more like an ending than a beginning?” I ask.
“It’s a beginning and an ending. It’s the whole damn story. Jerry! Over here.”
Jerry Herzog swoops up to the table and grabs James Aspen by the arm. “Jimmy! I was just about to call in the Royal Canadian Mounted in their
red suits to ride you down. What are you doing here by yourself? You’re not supposed to go anywhere without the escorts.”
“They’re the worst-looking escorts I’ve ever had in my life. I’m not that old.”
“So I see you found yourself someone more to your liking.”
“This is the Asian woman. You know? The locations scout.”
I am already standing, offering my hand. “Ai Lee.”
“For this film? No, no, Jimmy. Locations are typical of the state of this project. We’ve got no locations. The local yokel told me they just fired the locations scout.”
“Fired? Fired! Well, whoever fired her, I fire him, and she’s hired again. Who fired you?”
“No one. That was my assistant. Lance fired him. I’m Ai Lee. I’m actually the locations manager. From Toronto?”
Jerry Herzog looks me up and down as if he’s trying to find my fin. “Oh, right. Hello, Ai. I took Jimmy to see your show down in LA. Did he tell you? Ai and I have worked together before, Jimmy. Very happy with your work. Jimmy loved your pictures. Your photographs, I mean. I don’t see it myself, but Jimmy says they’re brilliant. I told him if they’re so brilliant we should get you to direct the film.”
“Should get her to write it. That’s what we need is a writer, and she’s just given me the solution to the hole in the script I keep telling you about. She saw the perfect location in a dream last night.”
“In a dream? I hate to tell you, but we can’t film dreams, Jimmy. It doesn’t matter how many dollars I throw at it, we can’t film dreams. That’s the problem with this whole picture. You keep asking me for dreams instead of actors or locations or crew. Does it have a dwarf in it?”
“No dwarfs, Jerry. Just the perfect location. I’ve gotta talk to Carl about it. I think it’s a beginning.”