Muriel Gray - The Trickster

Right now, though, it was more than he could stand.

The only solution was his cassettes, but it looked like she’d cleared them away again.

‘Dig in the glovebox, Billy, will you? Any music in there?’

Billy opened it and rummaged around. ‘Nah.’

‘What does she do with them?’

Billy smiled.

‘Help me choose some at the gas station?’

‘Sure.’

Sam turned the car into Silver’s main street and headed for the Petro-Canada. Cruising down the wide street, its verge piled high with wedges of old black snow, always made Sam feel like he was being covered in warm syrup. It was comforting. It was safe. It was also breathtakingly beautiful. At the eastern end of the street Wolf Mountain stabbed into the sky, a pyramid of seemingly impenetrable rock. Since Silver was nearly five thousand feet above sea level, and Wolf Mountain officially eight-and-a-half thousand, the stone cliffs that towered over the town were pushing four thousand feet. But its fortress was a lie. The climber braving those crags would be crestfallen to discover that the mountain was all bravado and had been tamed several times over.

Not only did the railroad run right through its guts, but its gentler western flanks were blanketed with ski trails and restaurants, hiding from the town as though Silver might notice the mountain had gone soft and lose its temper.

But to the non-skiing tourists wandering around the sunny sidewalks, looking in gift shops and killing time until their partners came down off the slopes, Wolf Mountain was picture postcard wilderness.

Sometimes Sam thought the mountain looked like it sealed off the street like a gate, even though it sat at least three miles away from town. In fact the very first night he and Katie spent in Silver together, he’d had a nightmare that he was running, lungs bursting, trying to escape from the town, or something in the town, and the mountain kept blocking his exit with a wall of living rock. Weird dream. Weird, since he loved Silver. And he loved Wolf Mountain.

They turned into the gas station and pulled in to a pump. Vince looked up from the till and waved a solemn greeting to them through the window. Billy leapt out and ran into the shop while Sam watched the pump eating up his dollars. Next time he looked he saw Billy inside, earnestly spinning the cassette rack.

A hand-written sign on top of the carousel read, Truck drivers’ delight. All country tapes half-price. This week only. We must be crazy!!!

Vince sure was making a mark on his patch. The customer might always be right, but as far as Vince was concerned the customer must also be blind. Day-glo stickers alerting the driver to the great offers now available in everything from mufflers to coffee speckled the interior and exterior of his booth like a fungus.

A woman waiting in the Chrysler New Yorker in front of Sam’s old Toyota was obviously unimpressed by Vince’s style. She glared at the man paying Vince inside, her face pinched and her eyes narrowed behind wire-rimmed spectacles. Sam smiled over as her gaze wandered in his direction, but the smile faded on his lips as she returned his greeting with a look of distaste. Second time today, he thought. You put out and you get nothing back. He was grateful that this time it was him getting the cold shoulder and not Billy. Sam looked in the booth to check out which poor sucker had to share not only the car but his life with the old snake.

There was a guy in a felt hat at the counter, who kept glancing back at Billy while Vince worked at his credit card. He mouthed a sentence to Vince and laughed. Vince smiled, then caught sight of Sam watching him. Vince saw something in Sam’s eyes and averted his gaze. The customer picked up the paperwork and left the shop.

Billy was still spinning the cassette rack when Sam came in to pay.

‘Anything?’

Billy looked thoughtful. ‘Whitney Houston?’

Sam made a fanning motion in front of his face like he was wafting away a bad smell.

Billy rolled his eyes and resumed his search, as Sam walked over to the desk.

‘How’s it going, Sam?’

‘Good. Good.’

‘Twenty-eight dollars.’

Sam fished the bills out of his wallet. ‘What did that guy say about Billy, Vince?’

‘What guy?’

Sam jerked a thumb in the direction of the man strapping himself into the Chrysler beside the wicked witch of the east.

Vince looked out. ‘Aw nothing. Just passing the time of day. Tourist.’ He held his hand out for the money. Sam put the bills on the counter.

‘What did he say?’

Vince sighed. ‘He said, am I getting old or are truck drivers getting younger? Funny guy, huh?’

‘That was it?’

‘That was it.’

Sam looked into Vince’s eyes and was confused by the message there. Vince picked up the money and opened the till.

‘Need a receipt?’

‘No. Thanks.’

Billy joined them, his head barely making it over the counter, his hand clutching a cellophane-wrapped cassette.

‘Okay, what about this one? Kenny Rogers.’

Sam put a hand on his son’s head, still looking at the man behind the till, and tried to repair the damage. ‘Jesus, Vince, your taste in music stinks.’

‘We aim to please.’

‘Catch you later. Give my regards to Nancy.’

‘Will do.’

‘Billy. Put back that box from Hell.’

Billy complied and they left the shop.

They had driven fifty yards before Sam spoke again. ‘What did that guy in the shop say to Vince? You know, the guy that was in before me?’

Billy was singing to himself looking out of the window. He stopped singing, and smiled up at Sam. ‘He said was he getting old or were truck drivers getting younger? He was meaning me.’ Billy giggled again. ‘Imagine thinking a nine-year-old kid was a truck driver. Just ’cause I was looking through the cassettes.’ He laughed again, and then got back to the busy task of singing to himself.

Sam felt sick. What the hell was wrong with him? That shit-kicking train driver had thrown him off balance by not returning Billy’s wave. Why did Sam have to look for prejudice where there was none? He was going to have to learn to trust.

Silver was a nice town. It was full of nice people. Sam thought he should maybe write that out a hundred times when he got like this. Stop him getting so cranky.

Yeah. It was full of really nice people.

He turned the radio on.

‘… not too hard, not too soft, just light. This is Daniel, Elton John …’

Truth. Silver was a nice town. Regular population eight thousand, twice that when the seasonal tourists poured in.

In summer they came in camper vans, bringing the main street to a standstill while the passengers peered at maps and pointed, and the drivers constantly wheeled round in their seats, either shouting at kids in the back or looking for somewhere to park like predators stalking game. They were a pain in the butt.

They turned the town into a zoo.

Winter, right now, was better. Skiers travelled by car or on tour buses, and somehow they weren’t so cheesy, didn’t wear so many shiny leisure suits, didn’t picnic in dumb places.

But then the winter trade was altogether different. Even the Japanese who skied all season, wearing identical white ski-suits like Elvis’s last days in Vegas, were different from the packs that roamed Silver in the summer. The summer Japanese were on tours, herded around by fierce guides, photographing pretty much anything their diminutive leader pointed at. The winter ones came in couples. They had more money to spend, stayed in the big Canadian Pacific hotels on the edge of town, and no one minded them a bit.

Winter also brought the ski bums, the Australian and American kids who worked just enough to buy a lift pass and ski the season away. They packed out the staff accommodation shacks hidden well out of sight of the tourists in the backstreets, revealing their residence by the stinking T-shirts and ski-suits they hung out their windows to air.