by Tyler Keevil
‘Yes,’ our mother said. ‘It is rather dreary.’
In the aftermath of the stroke both Jake and I had tried to explain the truth to her in our own way and each time our mother had either perceived the revelation as a terrible joke or expressed horror and dismay – as if she was finding out for the first time, all over again, that her daughter was dead. The blood vessel that had ruptured in her brain had wiped away that era of her life. That was all it had taken to obliterate the tragedy. Possibly it was also psychological but that didn’t matter to me. I envied her the magic and the blissful ease of it.
Sandy didn’t come up again while we sat and drank our coffee and ate our doughnuts. When the doughnuts were done Ma fumbled for her pack of Craven A, which she kept in the pocket of her bathrobe. It was a fresh pack, probably her second of the day. She slid open the top and peeled back the foil with her fingers, stained that strange yellow-brown from years of tar. Jake asked for a cigarette and she said, ‘Don’t be silly, Jake – you don’t smoke.’ But when he reached across for one she didn’t try to stop him.
‘I’ve been a bad influence on you boys,’ was what she said.
Jake grunted – neither in acknowledgement nor disagreement.
Both our parents had smoked when we were kids, until our dad had died of cancer – not lung cancer but another cancer, pancreatic, which had most likely been brought on by his smoking. After that our mother had quit, due in large part to Sandy’s vigilance. Sandy had patrolled the house and found hidden packs of smokes like a detective uncovering clues, and destroyed any she found. She had stopped Ma from smoking for fifteen years, but when what happened had happened, Ma started up again and there was nothing to be done about that.
While they smoked I got up and opened the sliding door that led to the balcony. It was barely a balcony at all, and felt as confined as a coffin. Just a few feet deep and about six feet across. All she had out there was a single chair and two potted plants – both dead. They were so withered I wouldn’t have even known what they were, except that I had bought them for her: a gardenia and a magnolia.
I stood at the rail. The balcony overlooked the alley behind Keith, and the back of another apartment block. In the alley three storeys below I saw greasy puddles of rainwater, overflowing Dumpsters, and the rusted remains of a bicycle. That view, and her little apartment, was all our mother had, and all she would have until we moved her to a care home, if we could afford to move her to a care home. Standing there in the dreary cold on my mother’s balcony, for the first time I felt the allure of Jake’s plan, of receiving a big pay-out, a windfall. He hadn’t told me how much the Delaneys were offering but it had to be a lot, considering the risk.
I turned and went back inside and slid closed the door, shutting those thoughts out. Our mother had lit a second cigarette and was talking fondly about Sandy again. Jake was gazing vacantly at the photos on the wall, tolerating her but not really listening. When I sat back down, he seemed to rouse himself. He said to her, ‘Ma – I have to go away.’
She smiled uncertainly. ‘For how long?’
‘A little while.’
‘Not to jail again? You’re not going to jail, are you Jake?’
Her voice peaked a little as she said his name. I was surprised she’d remembered.
‘No, no – on a little trip, is all.’
‘So long as you’re careful.’
‘You know me.’
She frowned, sceptically, in a way that reminded me of her old self. ‘Is Tim going with you?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘He was going to but now he’s not.’
‘Oh, Tim,’ she said. She reached over to pat my hand. Against mine, hers looked very small and withered. A mummified hand. ‘I’d feel better about it if you were going.’
‘I might, Ma. I guess I might.’
‘That’s a relief. You take care of your brother, won’t you Tim?’
‘I do,’ I said. ‘I will.’
Jake and I gazed at each other, through the haze of smoke they’d created. I guess I knew then that I was going to be part of it, and that all my talk about backing out had been just that: talk. The truth is, my loyalty to my brother was so strong that I would have gone along with pretty much any plan, no matter how dumb or foolhardy or crazy, no matter what.
Our mother asked, ‘Where are you boys going?’
I raised my eyebrows at him, but he pretended not to notice.
‘Just on a drive,’ he said, distantly. ‘A sort of road trip.’
‘Will you see Sandy?’
‘You can’t drive to France,’ Jake said.
‘But she might meet us,’ I said.
‘Oh – how wonderful.’
‘Ma,’ Jake said.
But she was up. Charged with nicotine and caffeine. She went into the kitchen and started opening and closing cupboards, mumbling about us taking Sandy something. But it wasn’t clear what she had in mind. Then she seemed to remember and opened the bottom door of her fridge – the freezer compartment – and got out a microwaveable burrito. We’d eaten them all the time as kids. She brought it over and deposited it on Jake’s lap.
‘That’s for her,’ she said, triumphantly. ‘Bean and cheese. Her favourite.’
Jake held it up, helpless. He said, ‘Ma – we’re not going to see Sandy.’ And then he said, ‘Ma – Sandy’s gone. I can’t give her some frozen burrito, for God’s sake.’
He said it quietly, but not so quietly she didn’t hear. She laughed, high and terrified. ‘What are you talking about? Timothy – what on earth is your brother talking about?’
‘Nothing, Ma. He’s just messing around.’
‘It isn’t very funny.’
‘I know. I know it isn’t.’ I took the burrito from Jake. He let it go but his hands retained its shape, as if he were still holding it – as if he were now holding an invisible burrito. ‘We’ll give this to her. Sure we can give this to her. Sandy loves these things.’
‘I know she does. And they don’t have them in France.’
‘No – that’s good thinking. That’s real considerate.’
She collapsed in her chair and reached for her cigarettes, even though she’d left one smouldering in the ashtray. She lit another and dragged on it desperately, sucking the smoke in as if it was saving her, not killing her: inhaling as if her life depended on it.
Chapter Twelve
Outside, as we walked back down Lonsdale towards the Quay, Jake asked if I meant what I’d said about helping, and I told him I did but that any money we earned from this fool’s errand would go towards Ma’s care. He agreed, and though in many other ways I suspected he was stringing me along I believed him about that. It cheered him mightily, having me on board.
‘We’re going whole hog on this, Poncho,’ he said, tossing me the frozen burrito.
‘Hell no,’ I said, and flipped it back. ‘We’re going whole horse.’
The first thing we did was withdraw the remainder of my pay from herring season, which amounted to just under six hundred dollars. We needed the money to buy tools and supplies for the job. That was how Jake now referred to it: the job. As if we were seasoned thieves, a couple of old pros.
We went to buy our tools at Canadian Tire.
This, too, was a familiar tradition. In the past, whenever Jake had concocted one of his schemes, which were always on the cusp of legality, we’d go stock up on supplies and I generally ended up paying because he was always broke. The previous times this happened it had been comical and even vaguely innocent: our attempt to break into a defunct bakery – of all places – to steal a bread-making oven for Sandy’s birthday, or his plan to salvage a haul of copper piping from a building site, or the minor scam he’d run that involved sneaking people, for a small charge, into rock concerts at the Coliseum, where he’d been working at the time.
We wandered around Canadian Tire, between endless aisles and shelves laden with power tools and gardening equipment and painting supplies. Jake held a basket ho
oked over one elbow and every so often he tossed something into it: leather driving gloves, balaclavas, nylon cord. Then he announced we needed bolt-cutters, and started peering down various aisles, searching for the tool section.
I asked, ‘Why bolt-cutters?’
‘At night the horses are locked in their stalls.’
‘I thought you had keys.’
‘I have keys for the stables, not the stalls. The stalls are locked by the owners.’
In passing through the kids’ section, Jake picked up a backpack – a Ninja Turtle backpack, adding to the general sense of juvenilia and ridiculousness.
I said, ‘I’d feel better if I knew a little more about the plan.’
‘You heard Pat. We get the call tonight, and we pick up the vehicle.’
‘That much is easy. What’s next?’
‘Next we head out to Castle Meadow, park up, and wait till the security guard goes to make his cash drop. He’s off-site for half an hour, sometimes more if he stops for a coffee.’
‘That doesn’t sound like much time.’
‘It’s time enough to go on in and steal her.’
‘What about the security gate?’
‘I know the code.’
‘You said there’s CCTV.’
‘We’ll have these.’
He lifted up one of the balaclavas. It was meant for skiing, and had a little colourful bobble on the top. He waggled it on his hand like a puppet, making the bobble dance. Still doing that, he led me down the next aisle, having stumbled on the cutting tools.
I said, ‘You still haven’t told me why the Delaneys want the horse in the first place.’
‘Ah, hell,’ Jake said, and dropped the balaclava. ‘They’ve got some beef with the owners. They want to send a message. They’re going to take her and hold her for ransom or use her for leverage.’
We’d reached the bolt-cutters, hanging with their handles open and jaws spread wide like steel traps. Jake picked up the biggest set and hefted it, checking the weight.
‘And these owners,’ I said. ‘They’re gangsters too.’
He pretended to be focused on the cutters, and their action: opening and closing them.
‘Reckon so,’ he said.
‘Shenzao,’ I said, trying out the word for the first time. ‘Is that Mandarin?’
‘Cantonese, actually.’
I swore and cursed him something fierce and said I didn’t want to hear any more. I got out my wallet and threw that in the basket next to all the supplies we’d picked up for our ludicrous endeavour. I walked away and left him practising with his damned bolt-cutters.
‘They weren’t gonna be stealing her from Daisy Duck,’ he called after me.
I pushed through the doors and sat on the kerb out front, feeling the coolness of the concrete through my jeans. A pigeon with a damaged wing was limping around nearby, looking for scraps in the gutter. It waddled up and pecked at my boot and, apparently deciding I had nothing to offer, cooed irately.
‘You and me both,’ I said.
As I sat there my cellphone rang. I thought it might be Ma’s care company phoning – I’d left a message about her bills – but it turned out to be Tracy. I stared at the display for a time, debating, and eventually accepted it.
‘It’s good to hear from you,’ I said.
‘I hope you’re okay.’
‘I messed up pretty bad.’
She didn’t disagree, and I guess that was a form of agreement.
‘Is your dad still mad at me?’ I asked.
‘He’s not happy. But he’s mellowed a bit. You know his temper.’
‘I sure do.’
‘He said you just upped and left.’
‘I feel terrible about that. I really do. But …’
‘I know. Your brother.’
I kept adjusting my grip on the phone, and shifting its position against my ear, as if I could get it to work better, or communicate what I wanted to say, if I put it in the right place.
I said, ‘Guess you know the cabin is all off, too.’
‘Goes without saying. But he might take you back.’
‘You think?’
‘My dad will listen to me.’
‘You call the shots, eh?’
‘In our family the women have the last word.’
‘That was the same in our family.’
‘You never told me much about your family.’
‘No. I never did.’
I heard a voice in the background. Maybe Evelyn.
‘I better go,’ Tracy said. ‘We’re leaving for Squamish, soon.’
‘I left a note,’ I said. ‘Ask him to read the note, will you?’
She told me to take care of myself, that she’d try me when they got back. Then she hung up.
Jake came out shortly after. I still had my phone in hand, gazing at it emptily. He asked me who I’d been talking to and I said Tracy and he asked if I’d smoothed it over with her and I just shook my head and said, ‘There ain’t no smoothing this over.’ Then he stood beside me for a time, and I didn’t get up. He had his bolt-cutters in one hand and the Ninja Turtles backpack in the other, filled with our thieves’ tools.
‘You pay in cash?’ I asked finally.
‘Sure I did.’
‘Give me back the damn wallet.’ He flipped it in the air, so I had to snatch at it, but my bad hand betrayed me and it flopped out on the concrete like a dead bat. That wounded pigeon sidled over and pecked at it once, as if to check whether there was still any life in it.
I said, ‘What do you figure the Triads will do when they find out we took their horse?’
‘They won’t know it was us.’
‘Let’s hope so.’
I stood up, then. I stood up slowly, purposefully, as if I was hefting a five-hundred-pound weight. I stood and put my hands on my brother’s shoulders. I looked him square in the face. He was smiling faintly, mockingly, his straggly bangs dangling in his eyes.
‘Is there anything else?’ I said. ‘Anything you haven’t told me?’
‘Not that I can think of.’
‘If there is, you tell me now.’
‘Except maybe where we’re taking her.’
I just waited, my nerves humming.
‘Across the border,’ he said. ‘We’re taking her to the United States.’
He stooped to scoop up the wallet, and held it out to me.
‘You dropped this,’ he said.
The pigeon squawked at us, with what seemed to me derision.
You wouldn’t have thought we’d be able to fall asleep on the night we were planning to steal a racehorse. But that’s what we did, after eating takeaway from the Pink Pearl and drinking a few cans of Molson. When I awoke it was dark in the room and I could hear the boot-stomp of honkey-tonk over at the Paradise. It had to be near closing time, around midnight. Every so often a car cruised along Hastings Street and the headlight beams swept across the ceiling, steady and repetitive as a lighthouse beacon. The effect gave me a kind of comfort, at least.
Jake was awake, too. I could tell because as kids the two of us had shared a room, so I had an almost instinctive feel for it: the rhythms of his breathing, the rustles of restlessness.
‘Lefty,’ I said.
‘Poncho.’
‘What time is it?’
He sat up and switched on the bedside light, casting a dirty yellow glow over things. He squinted at his watch, a battered Timex that had belonged to our pa. That was all we had, when it came to him. An old watch, and a few memories: his smile and his smoky smell and the way he picked you up, burly as a bear. We were both pretty young when he went.
‘About eleven,’ Jake said.
‘I ain’t gonna sleep no more.’
He stood and from the bedside table picked up the phone Mark Delaney had given us. He snapped it open to check the display. Nothing. He put it back down and stood there for a minute with his hands on his hips, staring at the floor.
He said, ‘We shoul
d get our shit together, so we’re ready.’
He unbuckled the clasps on his suitcase and flipped it open. Into it, he tossed various supplies and possessions: dirty clothes, the half-drunk bottle of Black Velvet, some veterinary gels and medicines (which he’d apparently stolen) and a few keepsakes, including a photo of us three as kids down in Stanley Park. Lastly, he added two passports. One was old and well-worn and the other still looked new and crisp and uncreased. I picked it up from the top of the pile and opened it. It was Sandy’s. She gazed up at me from the page, her face solemn in the way you had to be for passport photos. She had a hard, angular face, all chin and cheekbones, and dirty-blonde hair, like us. In the picture it was pulled back in a ponytail.
‘I forgot you had this,’ I said.
She’d applied for a new passport and work visa just before leaving. Then she’d died and never left and the passport had arrived in the mail a month or so later. That was a terrible thing I recalled from the time of her death: how mail kept arriving, the phone kept ringing, people kept asking after her. And we kept having to explain what had happened.
‘I was supposed to mail it to Ottawa, to cancel it.’
I checked the dates. It hadn’t expired yet.
‘These things last forever,’ I said.
‘Ten years, but it might as well be.’
I closed it gently, and handed it to him. He put it back in the suitcase with the photo and keepsakes. Then he sat on the bed with his guitar and started fitting a new B-string. I was pretty much packed (I hadn’t really unpacked) so I just lay on the floor and watched.
He affixed the string to the bridge and ran it over the fretboard and up to the neck, where he twisted it around the peg. With that in place, he hunched over the guitar and set to tuning it: strumming it once and adjusting the first peg, then strumming it again. These were motions I had watched him perform many times, and as on those other occasions it struck me as a rarity to see Jake so tranquil, and unencumbered by the fierce and bitter tensions that had been humming through him ever since our sister’s death.
‘Are you going to bring that?’ I asked him.