Who by Fire (17 page)

Retire was something Bill had sworn never to do. No pension or fat severance. No boiling palm-tree town in an American swamp or desert. When he thought retirement, he saw fleets of bellied geezers lining the mahogany at a faux-tropical bar, turning
like birds each time the buxom barmaid passed. Endless casinos.

At a 24-hour truckstop in Edmonton, the waitress called him Junior, served him over-easy instead of sunny side up, white toast instead of brown. Off again down the QEII. Three hours to Calgary.

North of Red Deer, a ranting blizzard hit. Ice balled the wipers and built on the windshield. Pythons of white sped by his doors and across the black gloss. Cars hit the ditch like toys with dead batteries. When he crept into Red Deer, he’d had enough. So many had given up before him that hotel after hotel down Gaetz Avenue had the
No
above
Vacancy
lit. Ceasing to look for comfort, he sought comfort’s opposite, and the strategy led him to Sonny’s Motor Inn. The room had it all: curtains that did not meet; the ghosts of ten thousand cigars; TV remote in three pieces; dripping shower head; iron-stained toilet; bed in the shape of a ruined back.

Before sleep, Bill thought to phone the Calgary hotel and tell them he was weathered in. A silky voice told him that, because of the deep discount he was receiving and the lateness of the hour, they would not be able to re-credit his credit card.

For some reason, giving up the money without a fight put him in the mood to phone Jeannie.

“Bill!” Her enthusiasm shook him. So genuinely glad to hear his voice he almost cried. She filled him in on the Hatfield Corners weather: two inches of fresh snow, minus eighteen by the thermometer out the kitchen window.

“Did you get the box? Dad’s binder?”

“Got it. Thanks.”

“Thanks, I bet. I knew you were mad when you didn’t answer my calls.”

“Me and telephones.”

“Soon, you can communicate with me in a less personal way. I’m getting internet.”

“On the farm?”

“It’s expensive. Satellite. But I don’t want to get bushed.”

He told her where he was and about the meeting; about his days off.

“Are you saying you’re coming down?”

“It’s up to you. If you want company.”

“Course I want company. When will you be here?”

“I don’t know exactly. Tomorrow night?”

“For supper?”

“I guess so. Sure. What time?”

“Whenever you get here, we’ll eat.”

In the morning, the highway south was closed. Ploughing and sanding in progress. By the time the highway opened, the panel on corrosion was about to start. At best, Bill was ninety minutes away.

By quarter to eleven, he made it to the Calgary hotel. He entered the hallway outside the conference room and saw black-tie waiters setting up the second coffee service. After a muffled blast of applause inside, double doors flew open and men and women streamed out: a mixture of city suits and vinyl-looking leather that Bill found familiar—or did until he realized he was only recognizing types.

He joined the line for coffee and pastries. Conversation circles were forming down the hall. He wandered the alley between them. It had been three years since he’d last attended one of these, but the interval was apparently crucial, overlapping the retirement or death of the world of engineers he had known. He didn’t see a soul he knew.

He was walking in the direction of the parkade elevator when he saw something different: a lone circle of old men. Leading with his
coffee cup, Bill parted his way among them, and a hearty welcome burst forth. A round of handshakes and backslaps.

Surveying the faces, Bill felt sad and damp. The pinkness of them. The white-tonsured shiny baldness. The odd bandage over what was probably skin cancer. They loved that he was with them, and it had to do with his relative youth. He would forever be Billy, a hard-charging youngster when they had been the powerful ones: the silverbacks of the oil jungle.

Now, they took turns reminding him to think about retirement.

“Don’t wait till your health goes.”

“Quit while you can get it up.”

When he asked what they were doing, they looked down or away. Someone mentioned golf. Sol and Hugo, standing together with the railroad map of southern Britain printed on their noses, were living posters for what they’d found to do in their retirement years.

A guy Bill only vaguely remembered started into a story about how he and two buddies were buying propane from little prairie plants and trucking it to remote spots beyond the natural gas lines. They’d even scored some federal recession money to hire kids to do the driving. The story embarrassed the others. Work was not supposed to be a nostalgic hobby. When retirement came, you were supposed to fuck off to the golf course where you belonged.

In the wake of the propane story, Bill asked if Lance Evert was around. This was met with silence. Don Giotto put a meaty hand on Bill’s shoulder and steered him away.

“Hate to be the one to tell you, Billy, but Lance has cancer. You know how he is—soon as he got the diagnosis, he researched it, started eating broccoli by the yard.” Don pretended to laugh, took a handkerchief out of his back pocket and dabbed at his red-veined eyes. “But he’s not going to beat it, Billy. You should go see him. He likes company. And Judy could use the break.”

Don patted him on the back and departed. The crowd was moving into the meeting room again. Bill tried to remember the agenda, what came next. He took a few steps and stopped.

In the underground parkade, he sat in his truck. In the exit’s golden mouth, a hooker strolled back and forth: fishnet stockings under a puffy faux fur. As he emerged onto the avenue, Bill was trying to tell himself that he was on his way to Lance and Judy’s house in Brentwood. When he passed the city limits going west, he knew he wasn’t going to Jeannie’s either.

Ryder Farm, 1961

TOM HAD BEEN SOWING OATS
all day in the meadow northeast of the house. A near-windless day and pleasant until the gas moved in after lunch and hung in the bowl where he drove the tractor back and forth. The rest of the day was spent getting dizzy and clearing his head, arguing with himself whether he should quit or finish. He thought of Hughie McGrady’s dead ewes and how Hughie almost died along with them. It could happen so easily. It might be happening now.

The field was small, a one-day job, and he stuck with it until he was finished. For the last while, he was squinting into little pools of tractor light, looking for the lines. Back at the house, he found the girls and Billy sitting at the table. There was nothing on it but his dinner on a plate, his knife and fork. The kids, all three, were scowling at him.

“What’s going on? Where’s your mother?”

Donna looked at Jeannie, and Jeannie spoke. “She told us we had to sit here and wait for you. She’s got something she wants to tell us.” Donna said, “Mom’s been crying all night.”

Billy looked like he had been crying too. He looked frightened.

Tom went through the arch and knocked on the door of their bedroom. “Ella, I’m here.”

He heard nothing back so he went to the table and sat, picked up his knife and fork, and cut into a slice of cold roast beef. “Wait with me a minute, all right?” he said to the kids.

Then Ella came. Her face and eyes were red. It came to him that someone must have died. Probably her father, who hadn’t been well for years. Still, it was an odd thing to do: to not tell the children, to make them wait.

“What’s going on?” Tom asked her.

She had a handkerchief in her hand. She lifted it and pushed it against her eyes.

“I’ve made a decision,” she said. “You’re right. We have to go.” She ran back into the bedroom. The door slammed.

“Right about what? Go where?” Jeannie glared in the direction her mother had gone.

Donna said, “She means leave the farm, right, Dad?”

“That’s what she means. She means we should move.”

Jeannie was standing. Her arms were rigid and her fists clenched. “That’s not what she means. It can’t be. Mom would never.”

“She has to,” said Donna. “She just said it.”

“Oh, shut up! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Jeannie, slow down. I’ll talk to your mother, but I’m sure that’s what she means. That’s why she’s upset.”

“You’re making her.”

“The hell I am. It’s her farm—her parents’ farm. Her decision. But it’s the right decision. We can’t stay here being sick. We’ll wind up like the pigs and calves.”

Now Billy was bawling.

“Come here, Billy. You can sit on my knee while I eat.”

Billy shook his head. He slid off his chair and ran into the dark. They could hear him banging on the bedroom door until his mother let him in.

“This is a damn nuthouse!” Jeannie stomped out of the room, then loudly up the stairs.

“You can go too if you like,” Tom said to Donna.

Her face was stern at first but then she smiled. “I’m glad we’re going.”

She stayed sitting with him until his plate was empty.

Casino

BILL SAT ON THE EDGE
of the bed. He had changed out of his suit and into casual clothes. All that remained was to go downstairs, find a cash machine, and walk the rows of VLTs until he spotted one that had a look of promise.

He pulled his cell phone from his shirt pocket and stared at it. He had hoped there would be no reception here by the mountains, but there was. He poked out the number. Jeannie answered. He pictured her in the farm kitchen, holding the black receiver to her ear. He told her he would not be coming to the farm. Not tonight. Not this weekend.

“Shit, Bill.”

“I’m sorry.”

He pocketed the phone, got to his feet, and went to the door.

Ryder Farm, 1961

TOM DID NOT ANTICIPATE
difficulty selling the farm. Aladdin would be glad to see them go. When he was ready to talk, he went to the plant to see Alf Dietz.

Dietz came in with his hard hat tipped back on his balding head. Sweat beads stood out on his long forehead. He had a grease smear across his nose. He stripped off a glove and gave Tom a sweaty hand to shake.

The office secretary brought coffee and the two men faced each other across the desk. Tom told Dietz he and Ella wanted to sell. When pigs and cattle die, that’s your profit gone. You’re farming for the hell of it. He did not speak of the risk to his family. He wasn’t going to beg. Dietz told him the Court family was leaving too, and it was the first Tom had heard of it. How could your neighbours plan to leave without your knowing?

But Alf Dietz couldn’t help him with selling the farm. All he could do was let Clint Comstock know. Tom said he’d rather deal with Dietz. Dietz shook his head and said it couldn’t happen that way. He was sorry but it couldn’t.

Two weeks passed before Tom heard more, and then it was just Dietz stopping by to tell them Comstock was going to send Tom and Ella a letter. He’d be coming north to check on the plant in the
fall. He’d visit then. This bewildered Tom—you say you want to sell and get away, and it’s treated like a matter of no urgency. Maybe he should have said his family was in danger. Probably Johnny Court had said he wanted to move because their daughter was sick, and so his deal was done—quietly, as if it was something shameful.

By then, it was the beginning of July and school was out. Jeannie came to Tom while he was greasing the mower and said she wanted to work in town for the summer. It was hard to keep back anger. Here they were heading into haying season without a hired man, and his oldest daughter wanted to work away.

He said he would talk to Ella, and Jeannie stormed off. By that, he understood that Ella had already turned her down. When Tom went in for his afternoon coffee, he brought it up, and Ella said Jeannie’s plan had nothing to do with work or wanting to make money; it was all because of her boyfriend. Tom felt like a fool; he did not know there was a boyfriend. Ella not only knew one existed but who he was. He was the son of the new engineer at the plant, Bert Traynor, the man who had replaced Lance Evert. Now that it was summer holidays, the boyfriend was working at the plant too.

None of this made sense to Tom. How could wanting to work in town be about a boyfriend if the boyfriend was going to be working out here? It was also a good question why Ella knew about this boyfriend but had not told him. She no doubt assumed he would blow his stack over the boy’s being the plant engineer’s kid. Even he was surprised at how little this affected him. It seemed inevitable. You couldn’t expect girls to marry local farmers like they used to.