Wind Tails Read online

  In a crack in the concrete, a dandelion pushes upwards. Everything passes, he thinks, and shoulders his pack to head for the road.

  Jo

  How odd, the things that pass between strangers. It was like that fellow’s life opened up just a crack, and what I glimpsed left me…something. Unsettled, I guess. It’s like it’s there, but I can’t quite get a grip on it. What a weird day it’s been. Outside, the wind keeps blowing and shifting; inside, it feels almost the same way. I feel as if I’m twisting in it, a dishtowel on a clothesline.

  It’s strange that Linda came to mind just then, in the middle of that odd conversation with that customer. Linda came not long after Genevieve died. The first time I saw her she was standing at the crosswalk at the end of my block. I thought her blue dress with the smocking was beautiful, and I thought Linda was a beautiful name. I can’t remember if I told her so. I hope I did, because when she stopped being there at the corner when I came out to play, I felt so lonely. I can remember standing at the corner, this empty feeling right in my chest, and I remember thinking in that way you do, that’s where my heart is supposed to be, so it must be that my heart is broken, because it hurts. I went home and told my mother, then, that I needed a band-aid for my heart, because it hurt. It was my mother who convinced me that Linda was imaginary. You don’t need a band-aid, she told me. You need to go and find some real friends to play with.

  Sometimes it feels as if I imagined the baby. Sometimes I think that whole time was a figment of some kind, a dream, maybe. Looking out at the sparkle of the sun on the wet ground, this feels real, but it also feels borrowed, like a bus stop or a train station. I can’t tell if the bus has left without me, or I’m waiting for it to arrive.

  Bob

  I’ve been coming in to Cass’s on a pretty regular basis for a long time, and I’ve seen her strays behind the counter from time to time. I’ve never figured out what criteria she uses for who she keeps and who she catches and releases, to use a fishing term. She sees something in the ones she keeps, that’s for sure, and seems to have some sixth sense or some such thing about when they’re ready to move on. Never once has anyone taken advantage of her; steal from the cash, or anything like that, and I would know. She’s good to people, makes people want to be good back. I know I’m pretty happy having Cass cluck over me with a coffee and one of those cinnamon buns when I’m coming off shift.

  And then there’s Jo. Can’t say what it is about that girl, or why it is that Cass kept her on, gave her a job. Everyone’s got their reasons, I guess, and it doesn’t do to question Cass about hers. Besides, I like the girl. Just something about her.

  First day I came in, expecting Cass, and there was this tall red-haired girl behind the counter learning how to take orders. She was so shy, I just wanted to see her open up a little, you know? So I asked for a CCS.

  “What’s a CCS?” she asked.

  “You mean Cass hasn’t shown you how to make a CCS? Cass!” I called, “How long have you had this girl working here without showing her your specialty?”

  Cass came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands down the thighs of her pants, which was ridiculous since she had a dishtowel flung over her shoulder at the time.

  “He wants a CCS,” Jo told her. “I know what a BLT is. But what’s a CCS?”

  “Huh. You better be careful what you ask for, Dudley,” said Cass, and flicked the dishtowel at me.

  It took a while before it came out that I’d asked for Cass’s Carbon Special—what happens when she forgets and burns whatever she’s got on the grill, like she did the first time she made me a ham and grilled cheese. We’d got talking, and before you know it she was bringing me this black brick on a plate, pickle on the side. “On the house,” she told me. “Policeman’s Special.”

  When Jo finally did take my order and make my sandwich, she called me Mr. Dudley—thought it was my name, asked Cass if Mr. Dudley wanted fries— before Cass let her know it was short for Dudley Do-Right. “It’s a cop thing,” Cass said, the two of us smirking and snorting, not very professional on the part of yours truly. By this time Jo was smiling. “First time all day,” Cass whispered to me when Jo had gone back into the kitchen.

  We’ve got along fine since, and I do believe Jo likes me well enough. At least she’s started talking somewhat, and that’s good: you need friends in this world. A little kindness goes a long way, whether it’s small animals, or guys just this side of crime, or the strays that wash up at Cass’s Roadside Café.

  Cass and I have that much in common: looking out for people. One thing I’ve learned from this job, no point in being a hardass.

  Before I was transferred to Middleton I was stationed in Vancouver, where for a summer and fall I was put on Commie detail. Must be just about twenty years ago, now, which tells you how long I’ve been here. Everyone was talking about the red threat, and we tailed everybody with a Communist Party card and a trunkful of pamphlets. I had a minor guy, J.P. Johnston, who was doing some advance work for the party leader slated to give a lecture on campus in a couple of weeks. He drove a yellow Dodge sedan, and we always joked it should be red. Johnston knew I was tailing him, of course, and after a while neither of us made any secret of the relationship. I felt no animosity towards the man. And I had no real direction to do anything but watch him and make him nervous, which I didn’t, particularly. After a while, all that road, all those miles of nothing but trees sometimes, he started to feel more like a friend than the enemy.

  I was following his taillights one evening, not too far outside of Hope. I was about a million miles away, thinking about I don’t know what, when I saw him brake, saw the Dodge swerve, then disappear over the bank. I put on my flashers, caught up with his car in a second, in the process hitting the doe he’d unsuccessfully tried to avoid and finishing the job. The deer was good and dead and the impact had pushed her well enough onto the shoulder that I wasn’t worried about another accident. Whatever damage the cruiser had sustained could wait. I could see in my headlights where the tracks went over the edge, and I pulled over, my light sending cherry-coloured beacons across the trunks of the trees. I called it in, and then went down over the bank, my boots sliding in the gravel. The car was down there all right, nudged up against a big pine but the ragged terrain and about a dozen saplings, snapped in his wake, must have slowed him down some. I found him groggy, blood on the steering wheel from the gash in his forehead, but conscious. He gave me a half-grin.

  “Handy you were right behind me, officer” he said. “What kind of luck is that, eh?”

  I held my handkerchief against his head. He looked pale in the light reflected off the trees from his headlights, and I reached across him to turn the motor off. I had radioed for an ambulance, and I told him that. He was shaking, maybe a bit of shock, and I saw a jacket on the back seat so I pulled it forward, tucking it around him.

  “Thanks,” he whispered. He grabbed my hand and held it.

  We were there about fifteen minutes before the ambulance showed, but it seemed like forever. The car was making strange creaking noises, and something dripped. You could smell gasoline, but there was no flame, no sparks, and I didn’t want to move him. It seemed as if something was broken, but I couldn’t tell what.

  “Should pay more attention to your driving,” I told him, just to say something, extracting my hand and shifting on my haunches.

  “Deer came out of nowhere.”

  “Well, they do that.”

  Above us on the highway a car went by, a whoosh, then another. I could hear the downshift of some rig, knew they’d be wondering what the cruiser was doing on the side with its flashers on, but thinking to leave whatever it was to Canada’s Finest.

  “It’s not easy when you don’t fit, is it?” Johnston said after a while.

  “What?”

  “You know what I mean.” He was looking at me, looking inside me. I looked away and coughed into my sleeve while I kept the handkerchief against his forehead, hoped the blood flow was
slowing, wondering where the hell the ambulance was. We heard the siren, then, still a ways off, but nonetheless obliterating all other sound while we listened to its wail. As it neared, he repeated what he’d said before. “You know what I mean.” Eyes on mine.

  When the flashlight from the local cruiser found us we were just there sitting in the awkwardness that followed, me with my handkerchief still pressed against Johnston’s forehead. But when I looked up into the glare there must have been an expression of guilt in my face, of being caught out.

  The officer thought he saw something between us, and this fed the suspicions that had been growing anyway. As I later came to realize, my colleagues had been talking about me for a long time. Whatever I said in my defence made no difference, which is why I’m now stationed in Middleton, have been for years against all Force policy, a dead-end posting if there ever was one. Which is how I came to find myself drinking coffee at Cass’s Roadside Café most days of the week.

  I used to mind, but not so much, now. It’s just a matter of how you choose to see things, that’s all. When Jo asks if I need a refill on my coffee, I’ll tell her my cup is half full, my little joke with myself. Then I’ll tell her to top it up anyway.

  Wayward wind

  One glowing ember

  Dancing in playful danger

  Rides a wayward wind

  — Anonymous haiku

  It was yesterday that Bob noticed him for the first time. It was in town, the hippie kid leaning against the wall of the local bar, a row of motorcycles parked outside. Bob was sitting in the cruiser across the road, watching; just keeping an eye on things. The guy who came up behind the hippie from the back parking lot walked into him as if he wasn’t there. There was a mile of empty air on both sides of him, and Bob could hear the outraged “hey!” The man who turned with a smirk had short hair. He was wearing regular clothing: plaid shirt, jeans. Through the car window, the words were audible.

  “Got a problem, hippie?” he tossed out. Then he saw the cop car, and ducked quickly into the cave of the bar.

  The cruiser pulled up alongside. “Get inside,” Bob told the young man.

  “What was I doing?”

  “Nothing. I just want to give you a bit of advice.”

  Bob let him off at the edge of town. “Most folks around here believe in live-and-let-live. Most, so long as you don’t bother them, won’t bother you. Don’t care where you came from, or why. But the bar you were sitting outside of, well, you were asking for trouble. You didn’t want to be there. Believe me. I just did you a favour.”

  Now, Bob sits in the cruiser thinking about the hippie. So many kids on the road these days. What are they looking for?

  The cruiser is parked a little off the road where the brush is thick: Bob’s waiting for speeders. Every car that passes is doing just under the limit, as if someone is up ahead tipping them off, but he knows the notion is ridiculous. He’s well hidden, on a scrubby side road in a dip just past where the highway enters a straight stretch and the urge to hit the gas after all those curves, for most motorists, is too much to resist; he’s been there himself.

  He waits, and while he waits, he thinks about family: the one that doesn’t speak of him, and the one he almost had. His wife, Marjorie, had him figured out early, when he still had himself fooled. Now, he has a friend in Bruford he meets every couple of weeks who works for the fire department. It works for both of them, the need for discretion equal.

  The wind whips around the car, the humming as it skirts the car’s exterior. What a day it’s been: a squall here, and then, two miles up the road, not a drop. A car passes, a blue Valiant with dice dangling from the rearview mirror. He knows this car from town: Perry LaRivière owns it. He’s never seen Perry drive so slowly. He’d like to stop him anyway, checks for a taillight burned out or some other excuse, but there’s nothing. He watches until the Valiant is out of sight.

  Bob starts the ignition and pulls back onto the highway. There is no quota, not really, but you should nail somebody over three hours running a speed trap.

  As he passes a pullout he sees an older man looking over a map as he leans against the door of an old grey truck, vapour from his wet rain jacket steaming in the sun. Mountain weather, Bob thinks, accelerating. You just never know what it’s going to throw at you.

  On the left there’s an overgrown skid track that leads to Howie’s cabin. Recently empty, the cabin is already becoming a party place for some of the local teenagers. Bob drives partway in, then parks the cruiser to walk the rest of the way after calling in his whereabouts, letting dispatch know he’ll inspect the place, do one more run through town, then be signing out for lunch. His concern about the cabin is as personal as it is official; he knew its former occupant well. Teenagers smashing beer bottles, making out: it’s just disrespectful. As he approaches, it’s clear there is someone here: a pair of boots outside the cabin door. The door is ajar, letting in late morning light and fresh air. As he approaches, a figure appears in the doorway.

  It’s that kid, the hippie he gave the ride out of town to, who, obviously aware he is trespassing, bolts out the door and around the corner.

  “Hey!” yells Bob.

  The flat Moroccan sandals on the kid’s feet are useless on the forest floor; Bob can hear him panting, crashing, and then falling. He catches up easily and hauls Pink to his feet.

  “It was abandoned,” Pink explains. There are dead leaves and pine needles on his clothes, in his hair. “I didn’t do any damage.”

  The older man looks at the younger in the morning light, filtered through a canopy of pines. “Why did you run?”

  They walk back together. Bob pokes his head into the cabin and looks around, but doesn’t enter immediately. It looks neat enough. The pack is still inside, a few things left lying around on the table, the bed. “I was just leaving,” he says when Bob turns.

  “The cabin belonged to a friend of mine,” Bob tells him. “What’s your name?”

  “Elvis,” a pause, while Bob raises his eyebrows, waiting. “Preston.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  The sunlight is warm. Around them, the birds, quiet during the flight and capture, resume. There are crickets singing in the long grass in the clearing around the cabin.

  “Been thinking of taking this cabin down,” Bob says.

  “Partiers. Vandalism. It’s a safety issue. It’s Crown land, after all.”

  “No rides. I needed a break from the road,” explains Pink, although Bob hasn’t asked. “What happened to your friend?”

  “Died,” Bob tells him. “In the cabin.” He watches for a reaction, but the kid is looking at the cabin with new reverence. “Wow. Sorry, man.”

  “Just going to check on it,” says Bob. “See everything’s in its place.

  Pink watches the cop walk into the cabin, panicking inwardly. Where’s the weed? Where did I leave it? On the floor beside the bed? Did I put it away? Is it on the table? Oh, man, it’s on the table. Shit. He looks in; he can’t help it, so when the cop picks up the baggie, Pink is there in the doorway. Pink sighs. There is nothing to lose. “Want a toke, man?” he asks weakly.

  The cabin is a fairy-tale hideaway, its roof moss-covered, the smallest, most delicate yellow flowers growing up out of the soft green. It looks magical: the clearing, the sunlight, tiny multicoloured wildflowers in the grass. There are birds everywhere, their songs slipping about the branches. The scent of earth and pine is sweet. To Pink, anything seems possible. But the cop shakes his head, and Pink knows he’s gone too far. He waits for it, but the tone, when the Mountie speaks, surprises him.

  “I am a cop.” Almost apologetic.

  There is a long silence that Pink tries his best to read, but can’t. The cop stands with the baggie in his hand, looking around the cabin.

  “Time you headed off to wherever it is you’re going,” he says finally. “I never saw you.”

  Bob stands aside, then, and Pink moves past him and begi
ns to pack up his stuff. His socks, drying at the foot of the bed, he stuffs into a side pocket. On the bed lies a heart-shaped rock that had been sitting on a shelf. Impulsively, he pushes it into the pocket with his socks. When he turns, packed, the Mountie is sitting on the one chair at the table, the bag in both hands, sifting the brownish green bud back and forth and looking at it closely.

  “You ever smoked?” Pink asks, his voice coming out in a bit of a croak. It is a gamble; he can feel his heart speed up just a little. He’s been given a break, there’s no need to push it. Yet he’s pretty sure that what he senses in the cop is curiosity. “Nobody’s going to know. It could be, uh, research.”

  The cop appears to consider this. He hands the bag to Pink. Inside are rolling papers, the bearded fellow illustrating the cover looking more like a friendly sailor than anything else.

  They sit on the step in a patch of sunlight. Bob—as he introduced himself—watches, mesmerized, while Pink—who, as a gesture of solidarity, offered the name he is using these days—rolls with long, expert fingers, tapping down the buds, forming a neat cylinder, licking the paper. The two ends twisted, Pink runs the whole thing lengthwise between his lips. Shooting a look at the cop, he lights the joint. “Like this.” Inhaling, holding. Letting out the smoke with a soft exhale. “It’s Thai,” he says into the smoke. “Good weed.”

  The words Pink hears Bob mumble are: “against my better judgment.” He doesn’t appear to realize he’s uttered them, so Pink says nothing. Bob coughs, and keeps coughing for several moments. The birds in the clearing fall silent, and then, one by one, begin to sing.

  “Nothing’s happening,” says Bob to Pink, who is inhaling now, eyes closed. “Give it a minute,” he croaks through a closed throat.

  A few minutes later the joint is gone and the birdsong has taken on a new dimension for them both. They are quiet, sitting together on the step.