Seeing Red (18 page)

“I don't know. Might be a couple hours.”

“Alright, well, gimme a shout if you're gonna be late.”

“I can't. My phone's almost dead.”

“Send a carrier pigeon then. I don't care.”

As he's opening the front door to the cottage, I call out, “Hey! Thanks again for bringing me up here. If it weren't for you, I'd still be on that bench.”

He stops in the doorway and exhales loudly. “What a weekend, huh?” And then, with gravitas, he adds, “But we really shook the pillars of heaven, didn't we, Reid?”

We both smile and nod in agreement. Then I toss my bag into the backseat and turn the key in the ignition and start revving the engine, just like old times. I honk the horn twice and watch Doc saunter back into the cottage as I speed out onto the open road.

THIRTY-TWO

The sun is beginning its descent into the western sky as I drive down that same country road we arrived by hours earlier. It's late in the afternoon but I still have plenty of daylight left. To be honest, I don't know where I'm going—I just want to see a bit more of the countryside and be alone behind the wheel for a while. I check the old yellow map of Ontario unfolded on the passenger seat and realize the Dockett family cottage is actually a few kilometres south of Kincardine; I decide to bypass the town entirely as I head north and the scenery is spectacular, with sweeping green fields stretching for miles in every direction. I must have caught it on the right day. Then I see row upon row of wind power generators gently spinning in unison and their calming motion puts my mind at ease.

Doc left his iPod hooked into the car radio, so I scroll through its contents and settle on a song called “Road” by Nick Drake. His wistful voice and soft acoustic guitar blend perfectly with the surroundings. I'm surprised Doc listens to such gentle music. Perhaps I've underestimated the man. When I arrive in the town of Port Elgin, I take a turn toward the waterfront and follow a winding road running north along the edge of the lake and the sunset over the water is absolutely beautiful. The sun looks bigger, redder and brighter than I've ever seen it before, and it divides the sky into four distinct colours: blue, orange, pink and purple. I park the car beside a giant flagpole and lean against the hood feeling awestruck by the sight.

Part of me wishes I could stay in one of these small towns and live a more pastoral life. Seeing a sunset like this every night would be amazing. But how could I afford it? Where would I work? How do these communities manage to survive if all the young people are moving away? How could I make friends, see movies, go out on dates, if there are no other people my age? It would be impossible. Best not to think about it. For now, I'll just admire the view.

I stare out at the multi-coloured sky and I'm suddenly reminded of the three goth-hippie girls and their spoken word festival—the one I promised to attend. I get back in the car and pull my phone out of my backpack and turn it on. The battery is flashing red, so I waste no time in dialing Craig's number.

“Hello?” he answers.

“Craig, my battery's about to die, so I can't talk for long. How'd it go last night?”

“Man, I slept with a nineteen-year-old! She was born in the nineties! She doesn't even remember Reagan!”

“Well done. So what're you doing tonight?”

“No plans yet. Why?”

“Wanna do me a favour?”

“Hmm. Depends. What is it?”

“There's a show going on in Kensington Market. I told them I'd go but I can't, so I need you to tell these three girls I'm sorry.”

“Who're the girls?”

“They're goth-hippies.”

“What kind of show?”

“Spoken word.”

“What's that?”

“It's butt-fucking poetry.”

“. . . I don't know if I wanna go to
that
.”

“Come on. Take your teenage girlfriend with you.”

“Maybe. I might. The girls—what're their names?”

“Swan, Dive and Hype.”

Craig is silent.

“So, yeah, can you tell them I'm sorry?”

“Where the hell are you anyways?”

“Doc's cottage. I'll call you when I'm back.”

“When will that be?”

“No idea.”

“Ugh, fine. . . . I'll try to swing by.”

“Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Talk to you soon.”

I hang up the phone as the battery beeps twice and the screen slowly fades to black. Then I toss the dead phone onto the passenger seat and recline in my chair, taking a brief moment to relax, reflect and witness the sun's final descent into the horizon. The sunlight shines directly through the windshield forcing me to squint my eyes and I can feel myself gradually drifting off, succumbing to my daydreams. And then, inadvertently, I fall fast asleep.

THIRTY-THREE

I was anxiously pacing around the hotel room with a cigarette in one hand and a cellphone in the other. I didn't sleep at all the night before, having tossed and turned until
7
:
30AM
. I was only twenty-three years old, but I knew exactly what I wanted. I was so tired of drifting from place to place under the guise of “travelling.” I wasn't really travelling at all. I was running. It was time to stop. I wanted to go home and stay there for good. I had to make the call.

The hotel was mere miles away from where Rachael was living. A few months earlier, she suggested we spend the Christmas holidays together—she even said she would come meet me wherever I was. We were about to make the arrangements, but I ultimately declined without giving her a reason. The truth is, I wasn't ready to see her. I was embarrassed by who I'd let myself become and I needed more time to get my life in order. Now it was January, and I'd come to find her again. I was finally home.

I dialed the number, heard her voice on the other end of the line, and asked her to meet me in a café downtown we used to go to. She was happy to hear I was in town, but she already had plans; I eventually convinced her to cancel them and see me instead. Then I hung up the phone and stood in front of the mirror and practiced everything I had been too afraid to say: how I felt about her since day one, how I kept thinking about her no matter where I was, how sorry I was for being so callous and how I would try to make it up to her in the future. My plan was to get a job, any job, and stay there with her—if she'd have me.

The weather was cold and damp that night and the roads and sidewalks were covered in muddy slush. I trudged through the rain and snow and it soaked into my shoes. The café was a fifteen-minute walk from the hotel and I passed the time by listening to sappy music on my iPod. Even now, I can clearly remember the uneasy feeling in my chest and the butterflies in my stomach. My heart was racing and I couldn't wait to see her.

Nobody was in the café when I arrived, save for the one old woman behind the counter. I ordered a hot chocolate and she poured it into a big, white mug and then I sat down in a booth in the corner and kept an eye on the entrance. Every time I heard the door chime, I nervously expected to see her face coming in through the doorway, and I was always disappointed when I saw it wasn't her.

So I waited. And waited. I checked my watch: she was ten minutes late. Then twenty. Then thirty. The place was closing in an hour. Where was she? I had to order another hot chocolate because my mug was long empty. I continued to wait. She'll be here soon, I thought. She's on her way now. The woman behind the counter began to sweep the floor and told me they'd be closing in ten minutes. Then she dimmed the lights and turned off the window sign. I stayed there in the booth, hoping Rachael would walk in before they closed for the night, but she never did.

I continued to wait in front of the café as the owner locked the doors, expecting to run into Rachael on the street. I refused to admit it, but deep down, I knew she wasn't coming. I stayed there and waited until my face and hands became so cold that I had no choice but to slowly withdraw back to the hotel.

I was sitting at the foot of the bed with a bottle of gin in my hand trying to call her, but I could only reach her voicemail. I didn't leave a message. I never found out why she didn't come that night, but I already knew the answer: I was too late. She had waited for me for a long, long time and I always let her down. I left the following morning and began planning my move to Toronto. Six months later she was gone, and I drank heavily every single day. Then the blackouts started.

THIRTY-FOUR

“Come on!” I shout, slamming my fist against the steering wheel. I'm driving south along the same country road heading back to the cottage when the car's engine begins to sputter and emit a dark black smoke. It coughs and rattles for almost a minute until I have no choice but to pull over. Smoke continues to bellow out through the gaps in the hood even after the car has stopped; I get out and try to lift the hood but the metal is too hot and I can't see anything in the darkness. I try to start it again and the interior lights flicker, but the engine stays silent. The Widowmaker is dead.

A green sign tells me Kincardine Avenue is only five hundred metres away, so I grab my backpack and say goodbye to the car, abandoning it on the side of the road. I cross a bridge over the Penetangore River and see another sign advertising a bed-and-breakfast in town two kilometres to my right. There's an empty police station and a few houses in the distance, but the road is dead quiet. I follow it alone in the dark, afraid I might run into a bear or a pack of wild coyotes. Eventually I pass an old gas station and a boarded-up restaurant before arriving at the bottom of Queen Street—the main street in Kincardine according to my map. Around the corner I find two or three motels and when I enter one I'm greeted by a friendly middle-aged woman behind a desk. I inquire about using the phone and she gasps and asks about my eye. I lie and tell her it's from a sports injury. She offers to help me cover up the wound and I say, “Yes, please,” so she leads to me into the bathroom and applies a concealer which manages to hide nearly everything but the swelling. I thank her as we go back into the lobby where she passes me a landline phone. I call Doc twice, but he doesn't pick up, so I leave a message on his voicemail telling him I'm going to spend the night in town and try to get the car fixed in the morning.

Overhearing my story, the woman sympathizes with me and only charges me the weekday rate instead of the more expensive weekend rate. I thank her again, and as I'm handing her my credit card I ask if she knows a good mechanic in town. She tells me about a guy named Gerry while marking his location on my map. Finally, I ask one more question about restaurants in the area and she recommends I follow the main street. “There are some nice places up the hill from here,” she says.

I take the key and head over to my room. Inside there are white walls and blue curtains and it has all the usual amenities. I throw my backpack on the bed and decide to head downtown in search of food. It's a longer walk than I expected; I pass through a residential area and over another bridge until I reach the top of a hill where I'm greeted by picturesque streets with tiled sidewalks and old-fashioned lampposts. Out of curiosity, I veer off the street and follow a gravel path downhill toward the water as it curls around the river and under a bridge and past an old lighthouse. There's a sign above the door that reads
1880
—I assume that's the year it was built. I continue along the path until I come to a small marina with boats docked across the river to my left. The path extends to a long, narrow pier, and at the end of the pier there's an orange-and-white sign—some kind of nautical marker. I sit on the concrete base of the sign and gaze out at the lake using my car key to scratch my name into the metal while whistling a harmonica solo from a song I can't remember.

When I finish carving my name, I overhear someone to my left and glance across the water to see a girl standing alone on another dock about twenty or thirty yards away. She looks like a mirage, like she's floating, and she has a cute, flipped bob haircut and wears a loose, navy blue sweater. I watch her for a moment as she sits down at the edge of the dock and her legs dangle over the side. I desperately want to talk to her; I'm trying to think of something to call out, but nothing comes to mind.

“Anna! Come on! We're going!” somebody shouts from behind her. She stands up from the dock, dusts herself off, and gracefully runs off to meet them, disappearing without so much as seeing me.

Still in a stupor, I stagger back along the gravel path and up the hill onto the street, continuing to wander aimlessly until I eventually find a crowded pub with live music. I have no intention of getting drunk—in fact, I'm deathly afraid of alcohol right now—but I just want to eat, relax and kill some time before I go back to the motel.

I walk inside and the room is filled with loud, jovial people of all ages. A thirty-something musician with short hair and a generic, radio-friendly voice is playing cover songs on an acoustic guitar, mostly popular sing-alongs and classic Irish tunes. The bar counter is long and L-shaped and I find an empty stool at the far end next to a map of England hanging on the wall. The young guy sitting beside me drinks a red cosmopolitan and doesn't say a single word to anyone the entire night. I order a beer and a glass of water and quietly keep to myself, listening to the music and taking in the surroundings.

About ten minutes later an older woman across the bar asks me why I'm all alone on a Sunday night. I tell her I'm from out of town and she says I should have a nice young lady on my arm, promising to help me find one. I smile and nod and raise my glass to her. Tomorrow I'll get the car fixed, I tell myself. But tonight I won't worry about it.

Sometime around one o'clock in the morning the bartender rings a bell to announce last call. I prepare to settle my tab and as I'm fetching my credit card from my wallet I see her coming in through the door—it's Anna, the girl from the dock. This time she's accompanied by a friend, a blonde woman who appears to be a few years older.

For the last song of the night the musician plays a surprisingly good rendition of “Lola” by The Kinks. The crowd recognizes it from the first chord, and they immediately break into a drunken chorus; I grin in spite of myself and quietly sing along with them. I watch Anna and her friend buy two bottles of beer before moving to the front of the stage and shouting “La-la-la-la-LO-la!” along with the musician. During the verses they mumble the words and laugh, unsure of the lyrics. It's cute.

Suddenly I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn to see a short, heavy-set girl with straight black hair and a tight blue dress. She speaks with an East Coast accent and says, “Hey, we're having a bonfire party on the beach after the bar closes, if you wanna come?” I look over at Anna again and she and her friend are singing “I'm not the world's most masculine man . . .”

“Yeah, sure,” I say. “Just let me know when you're leaving.”

She introduces herself as Tammy and then she smiles and walks away. I finish my beer and place the bottle on the counter and then nervously approach the stage. I keep my eyes focused on the musician as I sidle up beside Anna. When the song ends, everybody in the audience claps and cheers and then the noise gradually subsides; seizing the opportunity, I turn to Anna as if I'm noticing her for the first time and her eyes are big and bright.

“Hey, did you hear about that beach party?” I ask, figuring it to be a safe place to start. When she looks at me, her expression moves suddenly from joy to concern.

“Whoa! What happened to your eye?” She leans in close to inspect it and says, “Here,” while pressing the cold end of her bottle against the wound. “You should ice that down.”

“Thanks.” I completely forgot about the black eye; apparently it's still somewhat visible through the make-up.

“How'd this happen?” she asks.

“I got punched in the face.”

“Why? What'd you do?”

“I threw a pylon at a guy. It was for a good reason though.”

She laughs. “Some people! Well I hope he looks worse.”

“Oh, he does.”

“You've gotta be more careful!” She pulls the bottle away from my face and says with a grin, “Nope! Still swollen!”

“So, about that beach party—”

“Oh yeah. We're going. Are you?” I nod and she says, “Cool. My name's Anna.”

“Ethan.” I shake her hand.

“And this is my cousin, Emily.” She motions to her friend and I shake her hand too.

“I'm guessing you're not from around here,” I say.

“Nope! We're from Perth. Do you know it? It's a small town outside of Ottawa. We're here on vacation. What about you?”

“I live in Toronto, but I drove out here with a friend of mine.”

“Ah, a city boy! That's cool. Well, let's grab another round and get going.”

“I think they already did last call. . . .”

“Oh it's no problem.” She whistles at the bartender currently fiddling with the cash register. “Hey! Tim! Can we get three more?” He gives her a quick nod and retrieves three bottles of beer from the fridge below. She pays him in cash and hands one to me. I'm impressed. “Alright, lead the way!”

The three of us follow Tammy and a band of locals down to a sandy beach at the southern end of town. It's hard to see in the darkness and the moon is new, but, unlike in the city, there's barely any light pollution, so the stars are shining brighter than I've ever seen them before. I walk carefully, navigating by listening to the voices in front of me, eventually arriving at a fire pit where logs have been arranged in a circle around a pile of ash. Tammy asks us to gather some firewood; Anna and I are given a flashlight and we go off on our own in search of branches. I find a shrub with some skinny twigs and start breaking them off.

“Where did you grow up?” she asks.

“Hard to say. I moved around a lot as a kid. By the time I was seventeen I had already been to ten different schools.”

“Yikes. You're a nomad.”

I laugh. “Basically. So I don't really have a hometown. Not anymore anyway.”

“Why'd you move so much? Were you an army brat?”

“Nope. My parents just . . . liked moving. And then they divorced, so I was constantly being shuffled back and forth between them.”

“Well, you definitely weren't raised in the country,” she says, pointing at the twigs in my hand. “Those'll never light! We need something bigger.”

“Sure they will!”

“Nah, we've gotta keep going. Come on!” She grabs me by the hand and leads me further down the beach. Then we look up at the stars and I try to impress her with my knowledge of the constellations. Unfortunately I only know the Big Dipper, but I take a shot at a few others.

“See that line of stars over there?” I say, holding up her arm and pointing at a section of the sky. “Those three right there? That's Orion's Belt.”

“Are you
sure
?” she asks skeptically.

I pause a long time. “No,” I finally say.

We both start laughing as she jokingly pushes me away. Eventually we find a dead tree hanging over the edge of the beach and strip it for branches, victoriously returning to the fire pit with long pieces of wood held across our arms. Sadly, they've already gathered enough wood to get the fire started and the fire is huge, burning over four feet in the air. Anna and I look at each other and laugh again, dumping the excess wood to the side.

The two of us sit together on one of the logs just as Tammy starts passing around a bottle of Jack Daniels. The musician from the bar has joined us too, and he's strumming instrumentals on his guitar while Anna and I talk about our lives back home. She tells me she plays guitar too, and writes songs in her spare time.

“Do you play in a band?” I ask.

“Nope, by myself. I haven't played any of my songs in front of people, though, 'cause they aren't quite ready. But I've started recording.”

“That's cool. I used to play together with my friends, but I haven't done that in a long time.”

“What kinda stuff would you play?”

“We did a lot of punk rock, mostly.”

She puts her hands to her mouth to amplify the sound and says, “Boooo!”

“What, no good?”

“No! You should be playing folk music.”

“Hey, I like folk!
Blood on the Tracks
is one of my favourite records. And I love Neil Young. My old man used to put his albums on all the time. I can sorta play the harmonica too.”

“Really? You should've brought one!”

“Yeah, I should've. But I didn't know I'd be at a bonfire at two in the morning.”

“You gotta be prepared, man! But yeah, so folk music, I saw this guy named Harry Manx play at this place in Gatineau a few months back and it was amazing. Do you know him?”

“No.”

“He plays the slide guitar. It's so good.”

“Cool. I'll check him out.”

She smiles and everything falls silent.

“So, why'd you stop playing?” she asks.

“Ah, I got distracted with school and work and everything else. I mean, I realized I couldn't make a career out of it, so it just didn't seem all that important anymore.”

Anna looks at me and blinks a few times before saying, with absolute sincerity, “I can't imagine anything
more
important.”

“Maybe you're right.”