Architects Are Here (24 page)

Nell said I do and then they heard an explosion. Richard drove them past the Los Alamos National Laboratory, written in a large globe on a tower. Streets named Bikini Atoll and Oppenheimer, where he worked. They drove northeast out of Santa Fe to Chimayo. Stopped into a church and dipped their hands wearing wedding rings into the dry grey dirt in a hole—said to have healing powers. Twenty-nine aluminum crutches and one wooden crutch hanging in the shrine. Three other aluminum crutches leaning on the wall. Pictures of Jesus done in thread, collage and paint.

I
WAS TALKING
about Nell’s experiences before she knew me. That’s how badly I missed her. I’d grown sick of remembering all our events. Now I was imagining the ones she’d told me about or had written in her diary. And it worked. I often felt like I’d lived in New Mexico. In a way, part of me was Richard Text.

We drove into Kingston and found a Canadian Tire, because David Twombly had shares in Canadian Tire. I asked him what made him invest in Crappy Tire.

I saw a woman, he said, who was helping a service person fix something. That’s loyalty.

Let’s get the three-man.

The two-man is on sale.

There’s never enough room, I said, for two men in a two-man.

We passed a Value Village and realized with a tent you need two foamies and sleeping bags and a frying pan and four plates made by Grindley with little sailing vessels as the maker’s mark on the bottom. That was the nicest thing about the plates. They look better while youre washing them, upside down, in a stream. We bought a Coleman stove for nine dollars and a fishing rod. I got a gallon of white gas at the next Ultramar. There’s a certain level of accoutrements you have to build up in order to camp.

Let’s talk about money, he said. I’m going to say a little prayer here that everything will turn out all right. Or for the best. What are the right words.

That we won’t be hurt.

That’s negative, Gabe. How about that we’ll accept what happens to us.

And he put a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes.

I didnt know you believed in God.

His eyes flashed open. I can’t shake this hunch that there’s a God, he said. Everything I’ve prayed for has come through. Though I’ve got rules about what I can pray for.

Sometimes vague rules.

That we’ll be happy, he said, angrily. I’m telling you this now so you can judge for yourself if what I say about anything is influenced by the God-hunch.

TWO

A
DOG WAS HITCHHIKING
just after Kingston, or at least sauntering down the road and when we slowed down it hopped in through the open back window. It looked like it had learned it as a pup. It was brown and tan with a long stripe of silver down its back.

It’s a girl, I said.

She just sat back there, open-faced, gamely sizing up the road ahead, as if to say keep her going.

We got out and looked around. Nobody and nothing anywhere. Hello, I yelled.

She looks like a free agent, Dave said.

She looks starved. She had found the chicken.

After three miles she was resting her cheek on the joints of her paws. She was asleep.

Trusting sort, I said.

Who could hurt that.

There are people who dont care for animals.

They arent the kind to slow down to allow one to jump in.

Well that one is living proof of your theory.

It isnt a theory, just reacting to your assumption.

What was it.

That she’s trusting.

So instead she’s ignorant.

She’s experienced.

She’s thirsty.

Youre thirsty.

Both our mouths were dry and we didnt want to talk. I dont like paying for water, and the places we passed all looked like they were stocked with bottled water in coca-cola coolers with narrow washrooms offering one tap that runs a mix of hot and cold, water probably infected with beaver fever and none of them with choice dog food.

We lost Lake Ontario behind our right shoulders, to the Thousand Islands, then the Gulf of St Lawrence narrowed into Gananoque. This is what we drove through in this part of Canada—the leftover froth of empire and the presidency of the New World.

Could I live here. David said he once wanted to buy an island but Sok Hoon wouldnt live on an island and now she was living in Montreal, which is technically an island. We passed a town famous for the platform scale. You can weigh anything from an ocean liner to a box of cherries. We crossed a brook and I stopped for that. The dog perked up. All three of us scrabbled down the highway gravel and sloped ourselves over rocks in the river and took gulps, even the dog. The bright dust we raised floated and sank over us and landed on the water.

Me: She’s not a water dog.

She looks like if water touched the outside of her body she’d dissolve.

Do you think you could love a dog that didnt like water?

Dave: I love everything. That’s my problem. I’m too easy with forgiveness.

No one mentioned absolving guilt. Youre such a not-a-good listener.

Okay I could love a dog that didnt like water.

We sat and stared at the bridge. How much money did it cost to cross this trickle of water. Who paid for it. That’s the power of a federal government.

David found a piece of red rope in the woods and hauled it out for a temporary leash.

She needs a meal other than chicken.

We took a detour into Gananoque. We were close to the US border. We looked for a roof that suggested, we have dog food. But it was an Indian reserve. We asked someone, and he said, Follow me.

We followed him in the car as he walked down the street. And then down another street. Then he went into a house. The dog still with her head on her moist paws. If it was me, if I was that trusting, I’d flake right out on my back with my paws pointing to the roof.

You’d press your luck.

Did I say that out loud?

Youve been talking aloud, my friend, since we left.

I keep thinking I’m alone.

Strange how when we’re alone we talk as if there’s someone to answer.

What’s strange is how often I’m quiet when I’m with people.

I assumed that would be understood as a corollary. Youre actually not much of a quiet one, Dave said.

I feel quiet.

We looked at the front screen door where the Gananoque reserve Indian had disappeared. Did he understand what I asked him? Had I offended him, called him dog food?

I could picture the strong elbow opening up the screen door, the shunt of a shotgun magazine and the double-barrelled blast straight through the windscreen, the hot weight in the chest.

Most people havent a clue what theyre like, David said. Sok Hoon kept complaining that I took over the conversation, interrupted her and wouldnt allow her to say anything. I believed her until my mother said that Sok Hoon must be a handful, she never shuts up and is always getting hammered with the babysitters.

How is your mother.

She’s good. She’s set up with that doctor. Dr Manamperi. She’ll put him in the ground and then sell all the antique furniture and move back to Michigan. But Sok Hoon, my god.

You know I refinished that furniture.

What furniture.

Dr Manamperi’s furniture. That was like my first summer job. He has great imported furniture.

Well my mother will auction it when he’s gone. I’ll let you know about the auction. But I’m trying to talk about Sok Hoon here.

I like Sok Hoon.

Yeah, David said. You used to share, what, a flirtatious sidecar of knowing glances with Sok Hoon.

Was he quoting someone? Some preface to a domestic novel?

What are you talking about, I said. And anyway who better to get hammered with than the babysitter.

Then the man returned with a yogurt container and passed it to David through the window. Here you go, he said.

It was pebbles of dry dog food.

We let the dog out and she lunged at the food. David poured it out on the grass and the three of us watched her eat it. The dog chewed at the grass like a goat.

We found her, I said, just outside Kingston.

I dont recognize the dog, the Indian said. That dog has a lot of faith in her.

And then we climbed into the car. Which way you headed, the Indian asked.

Montreal.

Could I get a lift to the highway.

And he got in with the dog and we drove him back to the Trans-Canada and he crossed the road and stood there, waiting for traffic to Toronto. There was something of the Indian in both of us. It’s a male thing. In the end, if you stripped us down to a loincloth, we’d be okay. We’d get on. We’d find something to look at and to believe in. I guess it’s love. Even without the love of a woman, a man can get by with the trees loving him, or a flat tract of water.

I was in terrible shape, Dave said, when Sok Hoon moved out. Everything I looked at in the house was full of Sok Hoon. She was putting chunks of furniture in the car. I saw half a bottle of Sumol on the front seat. Would I have ever tasted Sumol, he said, if not for Sok Hoon? And that morning, in the Land Rover when she strapped Owen into the back seat. They were headed for Montreal. Like us now. I saw the old man next door say to Sok Hoon, Your husband is waving. I was watching them from the window, Owen in his red kimono. I was in my underwear. I was waving through one of Owen’s stuffed toys. A dog. I was trying to connect through the childish mode—you know all about that with your Toby act. The dog in my arms. Dog waving. And it’s so silly, but that dog had a presence through us.

Dave I understand.

I made him sad, he said. I had him look puzzled at the thought of them leaving, I put his glass eyes under his paws.

The fact that he fessed up to this made me less angry about Toby. Perhaps it wasnt such an act of betrayal on Nell’s part. Maybe most men have a channel to childish intimacy and men use it, when necessary, to lure a woman’s heart. But this act did not retrieve Sok Hoon. She’d had enough. And by the time she was all set up in Montreal, David had cheered at his prospects. When you grab a tissue, he said, and the box lifts with the tissue then falls again. You know youve reached the end of your woes. When there arent enough tissues left to hold down a box, that’s when you know youve been crying enough for one day.

He hadnt fully loved Sok Hoon. There were things about her. Something vulgar about her features that was arising with age.

Sok Hoon, I said, has to be the most beautiful woman youve ever been with.

He agreed that Sok Hoon was a gorgeous woman. These were small things you notice, he said, after being with someone for years. Sok Hoon has a good body and face and good feet and hands.

My god youre fit for no one.

Who is, he said. Who is.

And I had driven him into a deep despairing pocket of truth. That Sok Hoon was successful. She’d gone to Montreal after working with some fashion designers in Toronto, and now she was a partner in an eco-friendly fashion label. The brand had caught on with the people who wanted to save the world from warming up. The label was involved with a research lab that turned recycled oil into fabric. During a failure in the product the lab techs found they could stretch the oil so thin it could cover water like a blanket, which, in arid countries, means you can halt evaporation and prevent malaria. Sok Hoon designed a line of clothing that could prevent third world catastrophe. A first for fashion.

There was something true in David’s account of my bond with Sok Hoon. We did connect. And when I first learned about David and Nell there ran a vein of retribution that made me wish Sok Hoon and I had driven over a state line. We were driving past Brockville as I thought this. The grey smooth eyeless factory. I was trying to make eye contact with this factory, find its eye, when something unusual rammed my hips and the dog was on top of me barking madly at the side window. And then behind us a car was veering away—it had cranged into the back passenger side. We were doing the speed limit.

David: Dont be angry.

Can you get this dog off me.

Be very pleasant and patient and remember we’re going to make him pay.

It’s obedient how we both signalled and slowed down to take a turnoff to a coffee shop gas station. The dog had an eyeline on the driver. I noticed the richness of his signal light, as if it was some internal pulse. David reached into the glove box for my wide-format camera. You keep him busy, he said.

The dog lunging for the door. We decided to lock her in.

She barked hard and muffled. Baring her varnished teeth.

He was a lanky man in a shorn fur coat. Perhaps fox. There was something wrong with his back. Oh my god, he said. If you hadnt been driving into me.

Sir, you swept into us.

There was a large impression above the wheel well. David kneeling to get a good angle.

It’s so wide, David said, I’m getting the Brockville plant in every one.

So what do we do here.

The fox coat was too short in the sleeves. It looked like his mother’s coat. The fact that he was driving a cranberry Lincoln made the coat into something precious.

David: We call the police, we share insurance numbers, your rates take a hike and we get our pursuit vehicle some original LAPD gear.

Okay okay we’ll wait for a cop. I’m not sure this was absolutely my fault.

This will cost you thousands.

It’s body work. On an old car.

The car was moving from the power of the dog’s barking. We tried to ignore it.

I noticed the steering is affected, I said, from the accident.

I know my god dont I know it.

He was perspiring lightly and I thought he should take off the coat. But we stood there leaning against the damaged car and David took out his pebble to call the police. Faces getting gas turned to look at us. Men with trays of coffee passed by and pretended to be concentrating hard on keeping the coffee level. There’s nine hundred acres of flat land facing this gas station. All that grew was billboards.

That’s a nice coat, David said.

You want it.

I’m just admiring it. It looks South African.

It’s not South African.