A Boy of Good Breeding (11 page)

“Yes, m’dear?” she yelled without looking over her shoulder.

“Is he coming back for good? Like, uh, to live here?” he said.

“That’s how it’s lookin’, sweetie. That’s how the odds are stackin’ up,” she said, and she saluted the old black dog as she passed the Wagon Wheel Café.

“Three babies and Max,” whispered Hosea to himself as he drove the two blocks back home. Three babies and Max. But Leander’s gone, he thought and glanced at himself and his hat in the rearview mirror. Four more residents of Algren, minus one, equals three. And no potentially dead or dying at the moment either, thought Hosea. He drummed his fingers on top of the steering wheel and told himself not to worry, not to worry. He parked the car in the garage and went into his house through the kitchen door. He hoped Lorna was there, in bed
where he had left her. He would put his cold hands on her warm thighs and she would say—

“Hosea! You’re too early!” screeched Lorna. She had flour all over her face and hair and the kitchen smelled wonderful.

“Oops,” said Hosea. “I am?”

“Yes, you are, and where did you get that hat? You know, it actually looks good on you! But what the hell are you doing home so early?” She’d said
urr-lee.
Hosea stopped for a brief second to reflect on that question. What the hell was he doing home so early? She said it as though it was their home, not just his. Home. She said it like she lived there, too. What with the flour on her face and everything, and barefoot! She could have said, What are you doing back so early? Or just, You’re early! Three babies and Max and no potentially dead other than Leander and now Lorna’s hinting at his home being hers, too, which would mean three babies, Max, and Lorna, as new residents of Algren, which would be next to impossible to level off before July first, the day the Prime Minister, his father, the man his mother had said, on her deathbed, was his father, had promised to come and see him—well, see Algren. All of Algren. Well, he had promised to see Canada’s smallest town and Hosea hoped that would be Algren. But. Grrr.

“I’m home early because … I love you. And what are you doing?”

“I’m baking, Hose, what does it look like?” Lorna was dragging one finger down a page of a recipe book and moving her lips.

“What are you baking?” asked Hosea.

“I’m baking cinnamon buns, Hosea. The smell of cinnamon buns, for a guy, is an aphrodisiac more powerful than all the perfumes on the market, did you know that?”

Oh, Lorna, thought Hosea. I don’t need an aphrodisiac with you. Just the mention of your name and I melt. I … melt.

“No, I didn’t know that,” said Hosea. “Well, good. That should help.”

Lorna turned around and put one hand on her hip and the other held the recipe book with her middle finger stuck in at the right place.

“What do you mean that will
help
, Hosea?” she said. “Help with what?”

“With us?” he said, knowing, just knowing it was all wrong.

“What do we need help with, exactly?” asked Lorna.

“Um … I don’t know. I mean, with nothing. We’re fine. Right?”

“What are you trying to say, I don’t make you hot anymore? You need a fucking cinnamon bun to get turned on?”

“No! You said it. I didn’t say that. You said cinnamon buns were more of an aphro—”

“I know what the fuck I said, okay, Hosea?”

“Okay. Let’s go back to it then. Say it again. Please? Please?”

“God, you’re hopeless, Hosea. Okay, did you know that cinnamon buns are a more powerful aphrodisiac than all the perfumes in the world?” Lorna spoke in a bored singsong voice and moved her head back and forth as if she were reciting something. Hosea was ready now.

“To hell with all the perfumes and all the cinnamon buns in the world, baby,” he said. “I don’t need any aphrodisiac but you!”

Lorna was laughing now with her hands on her hips and saying, “Yeah, yeah. Not gonna happen. My timer’s going off in about four minutes.”

Knute and Summer Feelin’ were sitting on the bed and talking.

S.F. was leaning against the wall with her feet sticking out over the edge of the bed and Knute was sitting on the edge of the bed with her feet on the floor and her hands stretched out
on her thighs. Summer Feelin’ lifted each of Knute’s fingers painfully high, while she talked, and let them drop. From the pinkie on Knute’s left hand to the pinkie on her right and back again.

“Is Joey a girl or a boy?” she asked. Joey was the neighbour’s yappy dog. Knute hated that dog but Summer Feelin’ thought he was cute.

“A boy,” said Knute.

“What if he’s not?” S.F. asked.

“Then he’s a girl.”

S.F. stared at Knute, gravely, for a few seconds.

“Do you know what I’m gonna use this stuff for when it gets goopy like nail polish?” She pointed to a container of old liquid blush Dory had given her.

“Uh …” Knute said, pretending to rack her brain. “Nail polish?”

“Right, Mom, how’d you know?” said S.F., climbing onto Knute’s lap. Knute could feel S.F. starting to quake inside. Soon her head would be back and her arms would be flapping. What’s so exciting? Knute wondered. Joey? Nail polish?

“Is he coming back just to see me?” S.F. asked. She shook. Knute knew who S.F. meant. She’d been wondering the same thing. No, she thought to herself, he’s run out of money and probably has some type of venereal disease that requires antibiotics and that’s why he’s coming back.

“Yes, my darling,” she said and wrapped her arms around S.F. “You’re the main reason he’s coming back.”

“I knew it,” said S.F. Knute fell over like a tree and her head hit Summer Feelin’s pillow. She couldn’t stop it from happening any longer. She closed her eyes and remembered Max. His hair, his smile, the way he talked, the way he smoked, the way he became maudlin when he drank too much wine, how he hardly ever took anything seriously, the passionate promises he made,
how he took care of Combine Jo, how he hardly ever lost his temper, his hands, his stupid jokes, his laugh, his voice, his letters that stopped coming.

“Mom, Mom, don’t sleep.”

“I’m not sleeping, S.F.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m resting.”

“Don’t rest.”

“Summer Feelin’,” Knute said. “Do you think it’s kind of selfish of Max just to come and go whenever he pleases? Do you wonder why he hasn’t come to see you at all and you’re already four years old?”

“I dunno,” S.F. said. She shrugged.

Knute sat up and S.F. pulled her off the bed. It was time to make another heart-smart low-fat, low-sodium, low-cholesterol, low-excitement meal, probably of chicken breasts and rice.

“Oh, Knutie?” Dory called from some cubbyhole she was painting in another room.

Oh no, thought Knute. Another morbid anecdote. “Yeah?”

“Did you hear that old Mr. Leander Hamm died?”

“The guy with the hat?” Knute called out.

“The guy with the hat. Yes. But he was very old. It’s a blessing, really.”

“Well then!” Knute yelled. “Bless us each and every one and pass the whiskey.”

“I just thought you might be interested!” said Dory. “For Pete’s sake!”

“Hey, Mom!” Knute yelled. “Why don’t you crawl out of that hole and come and hang out in the kitchen with us while I make supper.”

“I’ll be right there,” Dory yelled back. “Put the coffee on!”

“Will do,” said Knute, chasing S.F. into the kitchen with wild eyes and singing into the back of her neck, quietly, “He’s
dead, he’s dead, he’s given up his bed, he’s said all that he’s said, away his life has sped, his body’s left his head, give us his daily bread,” and Summer Feelin’ had to laugh in spite of herself. Thank God, thought Knute.

Lorna was on her way home. Everything had gone quite well, thought Hosea, very well really, except for the end when she had said, “Oh, Hosea, you know I think about living with you, having a nice easy life together, you know, just … being together.”

Nice? Easy?
Could life be that way, Hosea thought, nice and easy?

Could it? And the two of them together? Obviously she meant in Algren. How could the mayor of the smallest town up and move to the big city? Well, he couldn’t, thought Hosea. And after she’d said what she’d said, Hosea had pawed his chest a few times, and said, “Oh you.” “Oh
you?”
Lorna had said. “Oh
you?
That’s all you can say, Hosea? Oh
you?”
But he hadn’t meant it that way. He hadn’t meant it to sound like Oh you, you’re such a silly kid. But oh you, oh you, oh YOU, my Lorna, my love. Hosea understood how Lorna might have misunderstood. He’d mumbled it into his tugging hand and looked down when he’d said it and had wanted to carry her back to his car, to his house, their house, to their bed, to bring the exercise bike out into the open and have Lorna’s sexy, lively colourful stuff all over the place, instead of sad things like Euphemia’s tablecloths and ancient jars of Dippity-Do, and forget about his stupid plan and live in honesty, the two of them, day to day, with July first coming and going like just another hot summer memory and not a looming deadline.

God knows how long it would be before Lorna came for another visit, or called to invite him over there, which was always exciting to think about but when he actually got there,
to the city, to her apartment, to the cafés and bars and theatres and universities and health food stores and bookstores, he always felt like an idiot, like a big goofy farmboy on a school field trip, riding a big orange bus that said Algren Municipality Elementary School, and Lorna saying “Hi, hi there, how
are
you” to people he had never met, and introducing him and should he stick out his hand, and is this rough-looking guy hugging Lorna because he’s what they call New Age, or … Or the time he had driven to the city for that Emmylou Harris concert and his car had started on fire at a red light. He remembered running into a little grocery store and asking to use the telephone and the guy said, “No, no, sorry no.” Then, when he got back to his burning car, some kids in the neighbourhood had pelted him with hard, wet snowballs, laughing and yelling at him, “Let it burn! Let it burn!” No, he much preferred to have Lorna in his little house in Algren, baking cinnamon buns, just the two of them. And then, oh stupid me, he thought, that’s just what Lorna had said she wanted, too, and he’d said, “Oh you,” which she decided he meant as Oh you, that’s a crazy romantic notion that really has no place in our lives, when he’d meant the opposite, and wanted the very same thing, but how could he tell her Algren didn’t have room for her? She would have to be counted and he didn’t have enough dying people to level it off. How could someone tell somebody else something like that? Could Lorna wait until after July first? Hosea shook his head slowly. She would have to, oh please.

Hosea had tried to get her attention but the bus just drove away under a sky the colour of glue and Lorna stared straight ahead. Hosea picked up a piece of hard snow and chucked it at her window and smiled and waved, but she had looked at him with one of those withering looks, a look that said, Chucking hard pieces of snow against my section of bus window will not thaw my frozen heart.

Hosea walked over to the chunk of snow, the one he had chucked at Lorna’s window, and looked at it. The snow around it was dusty from the exhaust fumes of the bus. Hosea gently kicked the chunk of snow towards the sidewalk. He walked up to it and kicked it again, a little harder, to get over the ridge of snow that lined the sidewalk. Up and over, there it went. Hosea continued kicking the chunk of snow towards home. It was getting smaller and smaller. He hoped he could get it home before it disappeared. Gentle kicks, but long distances. Scoop it from underneath with the top of your foot. That was the trick. He shouldn’t be doing this, he thought. What if somebody saw him, the mayor of Algren, kicking a piece of snow down the sidewalk? Well, it wasn’t far to his house, and besides he’d done it as a boy, with Tom. They’d pick their chunks, inspecting them closely to make sure they were pretty much exactly the same size and weight, and then home they’d go. When they got home, if their chunks of snow hadn’t disappeared or been kicked so far they got lost, they’d play hockey with one of them until it did disappear and then, for a big laugh, they’d continue to play with it. It wasn’t there but they’d play with it anyway, taking slapshots, scoring goals, having it dropped by imaginary referees at centre ice, skating like crazy down the ice to catch the rebound off their sticks. Often, they would argue about goals, the puck being offside, illegal penalty shots, all that stuff, and they’d have huge hockey fights, throwing their woollen mittens down on the ground and trying to pull each other’s jackets off over their heads.

One day Euphemia came out of the house with an empty whipping cream carton. “Here, you boys,” she’d said. “Why don’t you use this?” And she had put it down in the snow and stomped on it once for all she was worth and then picked the flattish thing up and tossed it over to them. They’d used it for a while, and Euphemia stood washing dishes looking out at them
in the back lane and smiling, and then they’d gone to the front of the house, to the street, where Euphemia wasn’t as sure to watch them, and went back to their imaginary puck.

It was Sunday. Algren was dead. Hosea slowly made his way home. As he walked past the back of the Wagon Wheel Café, Mrs. Cherniski, the owner of the café, poked her head out of the kitchen and said, “Hey, Hosea!” Hosea’s head snapped up like a fish on a line, but not before he made a mental note of where his chunk of ice had stopped.

“Hello, Mrs. Cherniski, how goes the battle?” said Hosea.

“So that is you, I was wondering,” said Mrs. Cherniski, “with that hat and everything. Looks like old Leander gave you his hat before he passed on. Nice of him. But I’d have it cleaned, if I was you.”

“Yes, I should, I suppose,” said Hosea, thinking that all its filth and wear was what he loved about it.

“Well,” said Mrs. Cherniski, “I’ll tell you something. If you don’t get rid of that damn black dog out there, the one hanging around the front of my shop, I’ll shoot the damn thing myself, not a word of a lie.”

“Oh no,” said Hosea, “don’t do that. I’ll find out who owns that dog and make sure they keep him on a line from now on.”