The Americans Are Coming (19 page)

“Mind if we come in?” said Shadrack

“It’s awful late,” said Nutbeam.

“Ain’t late. Ain’t even twelve o’clock.”

“What d’ya want?”

“Don’t want nothin’. Jist came to visit ya. Was tellin’ Dryfly here about ya. He wanted to meet ya.”

Nutbeam sighed. “Come in,” he said. “But just for a minute!”

“Awful dark in here. Ain’t ya got a lamp?”

“Yes, I have a lamp.”

“Nutbeam struck a match and lit the lamp.

“Nice place ya got here, Nutbeam,” said Dryfly.

“Just an old camp.”

“I like it.”

“Would ya like a drink o’ wine?” asked Shad, pulling a bottle of sherry out from under his jacket.

“I haven’t had a drink in ten years,” said Nutbeam.

“Go ahead, have a drink. It’s good stuff. Golden Nut.”

“No. I think not.”

“Aw, c’mon! Won’t hurt ya. Have a drink o’ wine. Good for ya. Keeps that lad from starin’ at ya.” Shad had adopted “Keeps that lad from starin’ at ya” from Bert Todder.

Nutbeam stared at the bottle. “Would be nice to have a drink with someone,” he thought. He sat by the table and took a small sip of the sweet wine. He thought it was, indeed, quite good.

Shadrack and Dryfly smiled at each other and sat on the cot.

“Bought that with the ten dollars you give me, Nutbeam. Wanted to show ya that I didn’t waste the money. Have another drink . . . take a big one, that’s no good! Take ’er down! Help yerself!”

Nutbeam took a bigger drink.

“Good stuff,” said Nutbeam. “Where’d ya get it?”

“Gordon. From the bootlegger in Gordon. We left another bottle outside, so don’t worry about runnin’ shy of ’er.”

The three sipped from the wine and it wasn’t long before they commenced to feel its effects. The conversation flowed a bit easier, and although Nutbeam hadn’t really talked any amount in years, he found that the words were coming surprisingly easy. He thought he might even be enjoying himself. The boys weren’t making fun of him either, or they didn’t seem to be. They actually seemed to like him.

“You play guitar,” Nutbeam said to Dryfly.

“How’d ya know that?”

“I know a lotta things.”

“Yeah, I play, but not very good.”

“You play good.” Nutbeam took another drink.

“You sure have some nice rifles,” said Shad.

“You like me rifles?”

“Sure do. What’s that one?”

Shad pointed at the rifle he fancied most.

“That’s a 30-30. Good gun, that.”

“You must get a lotta deer and moose and stuff,” said Shadrack, still admiring the rifles.

“I get what I need.”

“Hey! What’s that thing?” asked Dryfly.

“Trumpet.”

“Really? What’s it for?”

“It’s a musical instrument.”

“Kin ya play it?”

“Ain’t played it much lately.”

“Would ya play it fer us, Nutbeam?”

“No. Makes too much noise. Can’t play it anyway.”

“What do we care if it makes noise? There’s only the three of us.”

“Not tonight.”

“Ya know what we should do some night? We should bring the banjo and guiddar back and play some music.”

“Ya could sure let loose back here,” agreed Dryfly. “No one would ever hear ya back here.”

“I can’t play very good,” said Nutbeam.

“Sure ya kin,” said Shadrack. “All ya have to do is practise.”

“They’d hear me all over the country.”

“Naw! Never in a million years,” said Dryfly. “Never hear ya way back here.”

“Play it, Nutbeam,” urged Shad.

“Maybe later.”

When the three finished the first bottle of wine, Shad went and retrieved the second bottle. With the ten dollars, he had purchased four bottles. He and Dryfly had consumed one on their way from Gordon. If they finished this one, they still had one left. Shadrack was in a party mood.

Soon Shadrack started to sing. He wasn’t much for carrying a melody, but he loved to sing, so he bellowed one dirty song out after another. Between songs, the boys told dirty jokes. Nutbeam was forgetting himself. Nutbeam actually laughed at the dirty songs and jokes. This was the best time that Nutbeam had ever had.

Shad got up and danced around the camp. “Yeah-whoo!” he whooped. “Yeah-whoo and her name was Maud!” He grabbed the trumpet and tried to blow into it. Nothing happened.

“Here, Nutbeam old dog, give ’er hell!”

Nutbeam was getting drunk and caught up in the excitement. He took a bigger than average drink of the wine, grabbed the trumpet from Shadrack, stood and commenced to blow.

BARMP-BARMP-BEEP-BARMP-BARMP!

Shadrack and Dryfly couldn’t believe their ears. At first they just stared at each other. Then, they smiled at each other. The smile turned into a chuckle. The chuckle turned into hilarious laughter. They laughed at Nutbeam’s big lips trying to manufacture sounds on the trumpet. They laughed at Nutbeam’s big ears and lanky body. They laughed at the awful noise Nutbeam was making. But most of all, they laughed at the reality that there before them, was none other than the Todder Brook Whooper.

Shadrack was already starting to get ideas.

Staggering homeward in the middle of the night, Shadrack said to Dryfly, “What d’ya s’pose a nice lad like that would live his life in the woods for?”

“He’s got big floppy ears,” said

“Yeah, but there’s got to be somethin’ else.”

“Inferiority comprex,” said Dry.

*

At the crack of dawn, Lillian Wallace stirred, rose and got dressed. She put on her blue shorts, pink blouse and sandals. Then, she went to the dresser and peered into the mirror. She combed her hair and looked into her tired, sky-blue eyes. If she had smiled, her full, young lips would have revealed clean, well-kept teeth, but Lillian Wallace did not feel like smiling.

When she was satisfied with her appearance, she picked up a pen from the dresser and jotted down three words on a piece of paper. She put the note in an envelope, wrote “Dryfly” on it, started to lick and seal it, but decided against it. Then she, with envelope in hand, left the room. Three seconds later, she stepped into the grey, pine-scented Dungarvon morning. Every bird that could sing was singing.

Lillian needed to think. To think, she needed to walk. She went down the path, over the hill and across the little bridge
Stan Tuney had built over his brook. A fingerling trout swam beneath the bridge, but Lillian Wallace, there in the cool dewy morning, did not take the time to watch it. She would be leaving the Dungarvon in little more than an hour for Stockbridge, Massachusetts and needed to see Dryfly Ramsey one more time . . . or at least be close to him.

She followed the brook until she came to Stan Tuney’s field. Crossing the field, she stopped to pick a daisy. She put the daisy in the envelope with the three word note and sealed it.

By the time she got to the railroad, her feet were soaked with dew. She didn’t care. She was almost there. In a minute she stopped in front of Shirley Ramsey’s house and peered at the window she thought might be Dryfly’s.

In the grey dawn, she eyed the drab, paintless structure before her. She eyed the sandy lawn and the car tires. They were cut diametrically in two and placed at the ends of the culvert. A sandy path led to the front door. In another car tire beside the path, Shirley had planted a geranium.

Lillian went to the door and stood for a moment. She wanted to knock, to awaken Dryfly, to hold him, to feel the warmth of his body, to kiss and hug and love him like he’d never been loved before. Lillian Wallace, young and beautiful, alone in a strange land, standing at Shirley Ramsey’s door at dawn, whispered, “Sleep tight, Dryfly, my prince of Dungarvon. I love you.”

Quietly, so as not to disturb anyone, she slid the envelope beneath the door. Without looking back, she returned to the Cabbage Island Salmon Club.

Back in her room, Lillian sat on her bed to wait for her father to awaken. She knew she would not have to wait long. Bill Wallace wanted to get an early start.

When Dryfly found the note from Lillian Wallace, he kissed the daisy. As the daisy touched his lips, a teardrop that had been coursing its way down his cheek dropped to land on the “loves me” petal. The old “She loves me – she loves me not” game would not be necessary.

Dryfly Ramsey was a dreamer.

Dryfly Ramsey had always been a dreamer. When he was a child, he dreamed of cowboys on dynamic white stallions, cacti and coyote calls (there were no coyotes in New Brunswick back then); he dreamed of exotic places like Newcastle and Chatham, Saint John and Fredericton. As he passed through the awkwardness of puberty, his dreams reluctantly changed.

Dryfly didn’t have it in mind to give up childhood, but it happened, as it happens to everyone. His dreams had changed from range cowboys to radio cowboys, the guitar being a key implement in the process. He wanted to be like Lee Moore, or Doc Williams. He wanted to live in exotic places like Wheeling, West Virginia or Nashville, Tennessee.

Now, Lillian Wallace had changed things again. The need for the love of a woman stormed in and Dryfly started to experience the cold, ruthless loneliness of adolescence.

Dryfly started taking long walks alone, dreaming of Lillian Wallace. He was seen less often, and whenever he did show up at Bernie Hanley’s store to associate with the boys, he was quiet and downcast, always too aware of himself. Shirley Ramsey saw the change in him. She also noticed that Dryfly was paying frequent visits to the piece of mirror that hung above the water buckets. He’d look into the mirror, sigh, comb his hair, look it over and shake his head. When the greased-back hair
went
flip flop
he’d sigh again and sometimes left the house for a lonely walk. Dryfly’s introverted state passed quickly, but not without leaving a scar – a change had occurred. Dryfly felt he needed a woman.

“It seems to me, to get the women, ya gotta be in with the
in
crowd,” said Shadrack one evening.

The two teenagers were sitting on the center abutment of the footbridge. They were facing downstream, watching an American fishing the Judge Martin pool. The American was old and bent and manoeuvred his way through the pool with the assistance of a cane.

“The
in
crowd?” asked Dryfly.

“Yeah. That’s the new sayin’ around places like Blackville these days.”

“What’s the difference in the
in
crowd and the
out
crowd?”

“Well, the way I see it, the
in
crowd are lads that got a trucker’s wallet with a chain that holds it to yer belt, and jetboots.”

“And the
out
crowd?”

“Lads like us.”

“There ain’t no girls around here, anyway.”

“There are in Blackville. Everybody goes to Blackville these days.”

“Maybe that’s what we should be doin’.”

“No use. Ain’t got a trucker’s wallet and jetboots.”

*

When Max and John Kaston pulled up in front of Brigham’s store in Blackville, the first thing that caught their eyes was a fellow named Lyman MacFee. Lyman MacFee played electric guitar with a country-rock group called Lyman MacFee and the Cornpoppers. Lyman MacFee did much more than play for weekend dances for five dollars a dance. He was also the president of the Blackville recreation council, a right-wing forward for the Blackville hockey team, the Blackville Aces, and the manager of Brigham’s Store Blackville Limited. When Max and John Kaston pulled up in front of Brigham’s, they
saw Lyman MacFee diddling “Mutty Musk” and step-dancing on the step that ran across the front of the store.

Max and John Kaston got out of the truck and approached the diddling, dancing Lyman MacFee. When they reached the step, Lyman quit diddling and dancing, swung and said, “‘Mutty Musk!’ The best damn tune ever played! Old Ned MacLaggen always said, ya kin tell a good harmonica player when he plays ya ‘Mutty Musk’ in variations! What kin I do for ya today, boys?”

“I don’t know for sure, Lyman, but I was thinkin’ I’d like to take a look at yer chainsaws.”

“A chainsaw! Now, there’s the rig! Come inside! I know just what yer lookin’ for! Dee-da-diddle-daddle-diddle-daddle-diddle-daddle-dum.”

John and Max followed the diddling Lyman MacFee into what Max thought was probably one of the biggest stores in the world. “It’s two stories and must be a hundred feet long,” thought Max. “And just look at all this stuff!”

Brigham’s Store had everything in it from beds to rifles, shovels to chesterfields, bicycle pumps to phonographs to clothing. Max noticed that they even had a couple of television sets. Max would have loved to have a television, but he knew it would never happen as long as he lived with his father. John Kaston believed that television was the creation of Satan.

Lyman MacFee led them to the corner he had recently cleared to accommodate his newest sales item, the yellow Pioneer chainsaws, the pioneer of the machine that would change Brennen Siding, the Miramichi area, even all of New Brunswick, forever.

“There’s what yer lookin’ for, right there,” said Lyman. “The best outfit to ever hit the woods!”

“Howmuchyouwantfor it?” asked Max, so fast that Lyman wasn’t sure if the words were English or not.

Max was a little bit afraid of Lyman, thought he might be lying to them, overpricing the saws, ripping them off. He was also afraid of the saw – it was ugly and heavy. Max had lost twenty pounds working with a bucksaw, but he had gotten
used to it. Now this chainsaw would demand even more from him; he’d lose more weight; he’d have more lumber to contend with; he’d be working longer days. He didn’t want to get used to it.

“All three of them are the same price, two hundred and forty-nine ninety-five – but they’re worth every cent. You kin saw more lumber in a day with them things than ya kin saw with a bucksaw in a week! Randy Carter’s young lad’s cutting four cord a day with one like this and is home for supper at four o’clock.”

“It’s a lotta money, though, ain’t it?” said John Kaston to Max, the son who was too contrary to go back to school and become a preacher; Max, the son who even refused to read the Bible or lead in prayers.

“Yep,” said Max.

“No money at all,” cut in Lyman. “No money when ya think of the wood yer cuttin’! That’s not one word a lie, John, four cord a day by himself! Let’s take ’er out back and I’ll show you how it works.”