Matt Lennox - The Carpenter

To look at the sky above the cemetery, you might think it had never been any different.

FIVEJUNE 1981

It was the slow onset of a summer evening when he watched the announcement on the evening news. He was sitting in a restaurant at the Pine Tree Motor Inn in Marten River. This, the first evening of his journey. He was eating a hamburger and french fries. The news came on the black-and-white television behind the counter and the newsman first said good evening and then he said Terry Fox had died that day in the early morning hours. The woman behind the counter did not stop what she was doing, cleaning silverware with a vinegar-soaked cloth. On the television a nurse at a B.C. hospital gave a statement. Then a doctor spoke and then they returned to the newsman and to other affairs. The woman behind the counter went to rub a spot off a glass cakebell.

Later that night, Pete lay in the back of his car listening to rain drum on the roof. He’d parked at the edge of a farm field and it was very dark outside, but for a purple stutter of lightning. He found he was listening for some sound or sign of something. Maybe for the radio to come on spontaneously.

Many nights, now, he lay awake. He’d very nearly suffocated, between the broken nose and the tape over his mouth. The back of his throat had filled with blood. Sometimes he had nightmares: the sledgehammer falling above him. The nightmares came and went and he woke gagging for breath and clawing at whatever part of the sheet had fallen over his face.

But this night on the farm field outside Marten River was different. He was not disturbed at all. He just was. And maybe he was awake to consider that.

The girl said her name was Veda and she was a few years older than he was. Whatever she was travelling with was packed into a nylon World Famous knapsack with leather straps. When he first saw her, he thought she was good-looking. When he saw her close up, he saw how her fingernails were chewed down and ragged. Her legs were long and brown. She was wearing tennis shoes.

He met her in a laundromat in New Liskeard. The radiator in his car had cracked earlier. It could be repaired that day but it was going to take a few hours. He was anguished at the hole the repair made in his wallet. Then he gathered some clothes to wash. It seemed premature to be doing laundry this early into the trip. He’d only set off from home at noon yesterday.

He saw her when he came in, loading clothes into a washing machine. Then she went out of the laundromat without looking at him. Half an hour later she came back. She was carrying a big soft drink cup. The only other person in the laundromat was an old woman dozing by the front window. He’d caught a slight reek of cooking wine when he walked past her.

The girl set down her soft drink and took her clothes out of the washer and loaded them into a dryer. Then she was looking at him. He looked back down at his book. When she’d loaded the dryer she moseyed over his way, chewing on the straw in her soft drink cup. She came with casual boldness, as if they’d been familiar all along.

— It’s fucking hot outside.

— I know it, said Pete.

— Listen, can you tell me where the bus station is?

— I don’t know. I’m not from here.

— Well, isn’t that my luck.

She dragged over a plastic chair and sank down into it. She did so as if suddenly exhausted, as if she’d just climbed a hill. She sat with one leg over the armrest. Hesitantly, Pete introduced himself.

— Hi, Pete. I’m Veda.

— Veda …

— You say it like you never heard it before.

— I don’t know if I have.

— Well, my dad was a hometown kind of a guy. But my mom, she’s a woman of the world. It’s the kind of thing she knows about.

— Veda. Okay.

He liked the way her name sounded.

They made conversation for thirty minutes, waiting on their clothes and then lingering after their clothes were finished drying. She spoke a little about university in Montreal. He could tell she was making tracks from something, but what this was, he couldn’t put together yet. She’d apparently arrived in New Liskeard yesterday afternoon, when he was still on the road to Marten River. He had the sense she was out of money.

— I’m going back to Hearst for awhile, said Veda. Going back home. It’s my dad’s place and it’ll do till things get back on track. Dude, if I had a tail, it would be between my legs. Put it that way. Anyways, where are you going, Pete?

— I’m going west.

— And how long are you going for?

— However long they’ll have me.

— Sounds like quite a move. But hey, dude. Shit like that I can respect. Anyways, if you’re going west then it seems you’d be going through Hearst on your way. Six hours from here.

— I get the feeling you’re proposing something.

— I won’t fuck with your radio.

— Okay, said Pete. You can ride with me.

They left New Liskeard early the next morning. He picked her up at the campground where she was staying. Veda packed her tent into her knapsack and got into the car.

— I’m going to say what ten billion girls have said before me. You seem like a nice guy. We get on the road, in your car, don’t turn evil on me, okay? I’ve got an eight-inch switchblade in my bra and I’ll stick you if I have to.

They had breakfast at a gas bar on the edge of town. It made him think of the Texaco. With everything that had happened, it had been necessary for him to stay on at the Texaco for some months longer than he’d intended, once he’d been able to resume working again. His last day at the Texaco had been the twenty-fifth of June. Duane had walked him to his car, smiling his townie smile.

— You take it easy out there, Pete. You’re a bit of a shit-magnet.

— I’ll do what I can. I’ll send you a postcard.

— You probably won’t.

Behind them a car was pulling onto the apron.

— One of us has to get back to work, said Duane. See? Some things never change.

They shook hands and Duane turned and sauntered back towards the pumps. There was an oil rag hanging out of his back pocket and in the other pocket was the round shape of his chew tin. A few days later, Pete was on the road.

Once he and Veda had finished breakfast and started driving, she fell asleep and she didn’t wake again until ten o’clock. She smacked her lips and looked around.

— Where are we?

— We just passed a place called Tunis.

— Tunis.

— There wasn’t much to it.

— I know it. I know Tunis.

This was pretty country, with great stretches of bush separating the villages and towns they drove through. They passed fields where the long grass was fiery with hawkweed and devil’s paintbrush.

— It’s your dad’s place in Hearst?

— Thanks for reminding me. I wasn’t thinking about anything and it was nice.

— Hey, sorry.

— Oh, don’t fret it. My dad, he’s a good guy. But, like, he’s a hometown guy. The farthest he’s ever been is Sudbury and he is A-OK with that. And Hearst, I just … Hearst is Hearst, right? One time I heard this comedian say that the thing about a small town is once you’ve seen the cannon in the park, you’ve seen all there is to see. It’ll do for a little while, until things get evened out.

— Things in Montreal?

— Yeah, in Montreal. And other places. Here, for starters.

She was tapping the side of her head.

— I hear you, said Pete.

— So this is the part where …?

— Where what? What part?

— The part where we exchange our stories.

— I was just making conversation.

— Exchange our stories and figure out what they mean. When you’re on the road, everybody you meet is going somewhere to get away from something.