River Odyssey (14 page)

The sun was breaking as we entered Montreal’s east side. I was shaking my head now to keep awake. There were islands, pieces of islands and slivers of river in all directions. It looked more like an estuary than a river. Nothing about the St. Lawrence was what I had expected it to be.

Hollie was dying to get out and run, and there was no way he would settle for a day’s sleep, especially when Seaweed had just woken, yawned, stretched his wings and demanded to be let out. Seaweed didn’t take no for an answer. He tapped his beak on the bottom rung of the ladder and glared at me. So, I surfaced awash, opened the hatch and out he went. I supposed I needed to turn my sleep around again anyway if I were going to go looking for somebody.

The lights of the city shone brilliantly in the early morning: houses, more houses and endless buildings. Right in front of us was Ile Ste-Thérèse, an island of farms, which looked a bit out of place in a big city. The farms ran to the water’s edge where there was a small beach. The water was shallow. On the north-east side of the island, in a pool with little current, I dropped anchor, inflated the dinghy and rowed Hollie to shore. We didn’t go far. If anyone saw us so early in the morning we’d rush back to the sub and take off.

Hollie hit the sand running. I think he liked the feeling of somersaulting. He bolted back and forth, then stopped in front of me and stared up with eyes like a crazy person.

“You’re crazy, Hollie!”

And he was off again. What a wild mutt!

I sat on the beach and kept an eye on the sub. The river wasn’t like the sea at all. It was much more unpredictable. I would never turn my back on it again.

While Hollie ran, I sat. I was stiff. My back was sore and so were my legs. I was so tired I could have slept for a month. The thought of looking for my father was bugging me too. Where would I begin? I knew he probably worked on the dockyards still, so I figured I could start there. But the dockyards of Montreal were enormous. I thought maybe I could ask about him at an employment office, if I could find one. I could look him up in the phone book too. Russell Pynsent. But I didn’t want to call. I’d rather find him first and have a look at him before I actually spoke to him. And I didn’t want anyone to know who
I
was, or that I was even looking for my father. So, I decided to use my grandfather’s last name, Peddle, the same as my mother’s, instead of my own.

After Hollie had run himself silly, he ran around sensibly. Then he ran in spurts and starts. Finally, he came over and stood in front of me, panting.

“Had enough? Can we go now? I’m exhausted.”

He dropped his head, his way of shrugging in agreement.

“Don’t worry. You’re going to get a
lot
of exercise tomorrow. You’ll see.”

But where to hide the sub in Montreal? We needed to find a pocket of water somewhere without current of any kind. And it had to be hidden. And I had to be able to come and go because I’d need to return to sleep. And it had to be visible to Seaweed, so he would stay in the area. What a tall order! All I needed at the moment was a place to sleep for the day. In the night I would search for a better place.

We paddled back to the sub, deflated the dinghy and climbed inside. I never knew if anyone was watching. It was unlikely. Just because you couldn’t see anybody didn’t mean nobody was watching. Once we were submerged, we were pretty much impossible to find, even in a river. I loved that.

After Ile Ste-Thérèse, we passed Ile de la Commune and Ile Sainte-Marguerite. There were so many islands in the river! Then, on the starboard side I spied a large container terminal. Big dockyards were good places to hide. We sneaked along the industrial zone with our periscope up just like any other iron bar jutting out of the water, except that ours was moving. And I found a spot.

In front of a row of huge grain elevators, with gigantic arms raised for pouring grain into the bellies of ships, there was a long, narrow, concrete breakwater. At its base was a tiny cove that must have been created when they sank rocks for the breakwater. It was only big enough for the sub, but I could tie up there and we would be hidden by the concrete wall. Sitting like a stone in a puddle at the very edge of the industrial zone, its portal showing a foot above the surface, the sub was practically invisible from the water and land.

I fed Seaweed and wished him a good day. He would stay out and mingle with the local birds and keep watch on the sub. Ziegfried said that Seaweed was a gregarious seagull. That meant that he liked to party. Hollie and I were more like hermits, although Hollie loved attention and loved to have his fur brushed. If I had fur I probably would have enjoyed that too. I fed Hollie, dimmed the lights, climbed into bed and drifted off to sleep before he even finished chewing.

I woke from disturbing dreams, having slept away the whole afternoon and night. It was early morning—I’d missed my chance to move the sub. Why was I really looking for my father anyway? Was I hoping he would become part of my life now? No. I wasn’t. Did I hope maybe he would start writing to me and send me things? No. Was I curious about him, what he looked like and how he behaved? Maybe a little. Was he a nice person? Was I afraid that maybe he wasn’t, that maybe he was somebody I wouldn’t like? Was I afraid that he would get involved in my life and try to stop me from exploring?

Yes.

Hollie came over, wagging his tail. I reached down and patted his ear with my toe.

“Hi, buddy. We need a bag for you.”

He looked confused.

“I think I’ll empty the tool bag. It has a shoulder strap and a mesh top. You’ll be able to breathe and look outside. No one will see you.”

He looked as if he were thinking it over.

“It’s a good idea. We’re going to walk forever.”

He wagged his tail at that.

“Yah. We’re going to look for somebody. But we might not find him.”

I climbed down from my cot and put the kettle on. Hollie followed closely. He still looked confused.

“Don’t worry. It’s okay if we don’t find him.”

HIDING THE SUB
was one thing, crossing the industrial zone on foot was another. Hollie didn’t want to go inside the tool bag. I understood that, but he really had to. Somebody walking through the dockyard might raise suspicion; somebody walking a dog definitely would. But try telling that to a dog who’s excited about getting out for a walk.

The tool bag was perfect for carrying him. It was really just a box made of tough nylon, with a wooden bottom and a mesh top. It was big enough for him to stretch out, turn around, eat snacks and sleep. Hollie weighed twelve pounds. The tool bag weighed about seven, so it was a lot to carry around all day, especially when I was also carrying water and snacks. But the bag had a wide strap and hung comfortably over my shoulder and swung against my back. I could run with it if I had to, but not as fast as I could without it. Hollie was not pleased when I put him in the bag, and he furrowed his brow at me, but I promised him he would get out as soon as we got away from the grain elevator pier. I felt like telling him that
I
was the captain, but didn’t think he would appreciate that very much.

We climbed out of the sub and greeted Seaweed, who was sitting on the concrete wall above us. I tossed him some dog biscuits. He stayed behind when I climbed onto the road along the pier and started walking. Seagulls would make perfect spies. They can go anywhere and hang around all day if they want to and nobody ever suspects them of anything.

The road ran along a giant open space, like an enormous parking lot, except that there weren’t any cars in it. There wasn’t anything in it. Maybe it was a spare lot for stacking containers when the regular lots were full. It would be a lot easier to cross at night, although there was a gate at the far side, and we had to pass through that. Maybe we’d just find my father today, say hello, come back and leave tonight. Yes, well, I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy.

We walked all the way across the lot, past the grain elevators, towards the gate. I slipped through the gate, squeezing between two metal poles and pulling Hollie after me. Then, an orange truck stopped and a man called out to me. He called in French, then in English.

“Hey! You’re not supposed to be here. What are you looking for?”

I approached the truck looking as innocent as I could. “Can you tell me where the employment office is?”

“The employment office?”

“Yes.”

“What employment office?”

“For the dockyards.”

“For the … what are you looking for, to work on the docks?”

He looked me over.

“Yes.”

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“Sixteen? So, you’re looking for a summer job then?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you’re in the wrong area altogether. You don’t come down here looking for work, kid.”

“You don’t?”

“No. You got to go to an employment office… in the city.”

“Where’s that?”

He rolled his eyes at me. Sheba said that rolling your eyes at somebody was a sign of contempt. That meant he didn’t like me.

“There are lots of employment offices. You’ll have to find that yourself, but you won’t find it here. Now, you’d better move along. You’re not supposed to be here.”

“Oh. Okay.”

From the grain terminal I crossed the train tracks and took another street that bordered a neighbourhood with houses. Once we were beyond the train tracks I let Hollie out. He looked up and down the street, probably looking for a beach.

“Nope. No beach today, Hollie. City walk today.”

Oh, well. He settled into a nice trot beside me and smelled everything. In the city he could teach other dogs how to behave.

We found a phone booth and I flipped through the white pages but couldn’t find Russell Pynsent. I didn’t want to call anyway. I flipped through the yellow pages, then the blue pages, then the grey pages, until I found what I thought was an employment office. I dialed the number. Someone answered in French, but spoke English when I did.

“Permanent or temporary?”

“Umm … temporary.”

“Skilled or labour?”

“I’m not sure.”

“How much education do you have?”

“Umm … grade eight.”

“Labour. We have a temporary labour employment office on Rue Sherbrooke Est. Do you know where that is?”

“I can find it.”

She gave me the address and I wrote it down.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

She sounded tired and bored. I wouldn’t want her job.

Rue Sherbrooke Est was two miles away. Half an hour of brisk walking. When we reached the street, we had to turn west. Hollie was staring at the tool bag now. You can only smell so much concrete.

I found the employment office when I spotted a group of men hanging around on the sidewalk outside a small unattractive building. The men were smoking and laughing and spitting on the ground. They looked more like hobos to me than workers. They looked like they slept outside. I wondered if they did. They stopped talking when they saw me come over and enter the building.

Inside were about twenty men who looked more or less the same. I was by far the youngest one there, and they looked at me kind of suspiciously. I went up to the counter, waited for my turn and said I was looking for work.

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

The man behind the counter nodded his head and handed me a sheet of paper and a pen.

“Fill this out.”

He spoke to me respectfully and didn’t roll his eyes. I was glad about that. I took a seat beside another guy filling out the form. It asked for my name, address, telephone number, allergies, experience, whether or not I had ever made an insurance claim on a job site before, and my social insurance number. All I could write truthfully was my experience, that I had no allergies and never made a claim. For my name I wrote, Alfred Peddle. For the address, I wrote, Rue Sherbrooke E., and made up a number. I looked at the form of the guy beside me and copied his phone number and social insurance number then changed them a little bit. I was only planning to work for a day or two to get information to help me find my father. I wasn’t even expecting to get paid.

When I stood at the counter again and handed in my form, the man read it over, made a strange face and stared at me. Shoot! He must have known I was making it all up.

“Says here, you can sharpen tools.”

That part was true. I tried to sound bored. “Yah.”

“That’s a skill.”

“Oh.”

He read some more. “Says here, you can clean engines. Are you a mechanic?”

“No.”

“But you can clean engines?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a skill.”

“Oh.”

“You’re a skilled labourer.”

Some of the other men looked up at me.

“Oh. Well, I worked in a machine shop for a few years.”

That was true too.

“And you’re sixteen?”

“Yah.”

“And you wanna work at the dockyards?”

“Yes.”

“How come you wanna work at the dockyards?”

“I don’t know; I just like the water.”

He stared at me closely. I tried to look disinterested, as if I didn’t really care if I got the job or not. He flipped through a binder with loose pages and spoke as he did it. “You can sharpen tools and clean engines. You better be able to do that if I send you down to a machine shop.”