The Extinction Club (12 page)

I
nside the van I felt under the driver’s seat, then the passenger seat, and scratched a furry little head. Pulled the two business cards out of my left breast pocket, my reading glasses out of my right. The manager and agent, I remarked, had the same last name. The pygmoid strain in the blood had evidently skipped a generation.

I thought of buzzing Céleste again but decided not to bother her. She can always buzz me … I jumped out of the van and crossed the street, trying to ignore the little tingles on the back of my neck that made me feel I was being watched. To a store called Earls, a wood-framed building that looked fragile and temporary, as if abstracted from a low-budget western. Earl’s apostrophe had been covered with white hockey tape and the “General Store” lettering bleached with solvent.

When I entered Earl was drinking pink Pepto-Bismol from the bottle. He was a man much advanced in years, with fluffy white hair like the seed sphere of a dandelion. His cheeks were absolutely purple. He wore a wool-knit sweater, perhaps white when first knitted but now caramel, with a ’50s hockey player skating on his back.

I walked up and down the congested aisles before pulling out a Montreal
Gazette
and two packs of Pounce cat treats, which I found misplaced on a shelf of dusty art supplies. On the counter, by the cash register, was a basket of bananas one step away from compost and a bag of rolls with a sticker that said
REDUCED BECAUSE THEY’RE STALE
.

“You need anything else with that?” Earl asked in English. “Matches?” He held up a box of Redbird Strike Anywhere Matches.

For the newspaper or the cat treats? “Okay,” I said. Business looked bad so I tossed in a bag of old-fashioned Australian licorice for Céleste and a bottle of Quebec wine called Harfang des Neiges (“Snowy Owl”). It was mixed in with a row of blue Gatorade, which reminded me of barbershop comb disinfectant. “How’s business these days? How are the separatists treating you?”

He flexed his fingers and made the joints pop. “Break-in last week. First I thought nothin’ was took. But a day or so later I see the Maalox are all out. You know, for the brown nasties? Imagine that. I think I know who done it too. A friend of mine, Bobby Adams, who’s older than I am. Here’s some advice for you—never trust anybody over ninety. And there was a flood too. Foot deep in the store.”

“Last week, you mean, during the storm?”

“No, back in the eighties. Anything else? How about this?” He held up a New Year’s Eve noisemaker, a ratchet device that he swung round feebly. “Or these?” He picked up a twin pack of playing cards, a scantily clad blonde on one deck, a scantily clad brunette on the other.

Cards wouldn’t be a bad idea. “Um, well, okay, but are these the only ones you have? I need some for a teenage girl.” I closed my eyes, wished I hadn’t spoken that last phrase.

Earl took the cards from my hand and put them in the bag. “Teenage girls like these cards. They like smokes too.” He winked at me before pulling back a burlap curtain, revealing shelves of cigarettes in cartons and bags with names like Native, Montcalm, Broncos, DKs. Fifteen bucks for a bag of two hundred.

“I’ll take these,” I said, grabbing some Popeye candy cigarettes from the counter and setting the pack atop the playing cards.

I paid in American bills and he handed me back, with fingers as brown and tough as dog paws, big Canadian coins. The dollar coins, I would learn later, are called “loonies” (having a loon on one side) and the two-dollar coins “toonies” (instead of, say, loons and doubloons). It’s stuff like this you want to point to when Canadians say they don’t understand why Americans make fun of them.

“Did you know that a man living in the States can’t be buried in Canada?” he said, holding up one of the bills to the light.

This gave me a bit of a start. “I … why is that?”

“Because he’s still alive.”

I let out a sigh. “Good one.”

“My friend Bobby Adams told me that joke. Only one he knows, tells it over and over till you just want to clobber him. You heard it before?”

“No, that’s … the first time. I’ll have to remember it. Listen, this Bobby Adams, he wouldn’t know
the bishop
, would he?”

“The bishop? Who’s the bishop? Joey Bishop? Bishop Tutu?”

I tried another tack. “He doesn’t drive a black 4WD with
a broken headlight
, does he?”

“What’s a 4WD?”

“It’s all right, never mind.”

“No, tell me.”

“A four-wheel-drive truck. This particular one had a big grille and a rack of lights. And oversize tires.”

The man seemed to be thinking it over. “Bobby Adams. He used to go around the neighbourhood sharpening scissors. He always did good work.”

Beside the door, in a spotless white plastic stand, was an incongruous array of … I wasn’t sure what. “Microgreens” it said on top, in professional lettering. Everything was labelled. Exotic stuff I’d never heard of, like red brassica and cilantro and perilla and tatsoi and mizuna and mache. Some of it was familiar: pea shoots, chives, watercress, arugula, red cabbage, fennel, French sorrel, Chinese edible chrysanthemum … There were also some hairy and mucilaginous pods of okra, which I tossed into the bag.

“That’s not a microgreen,” Earl informed me.

“I’ll still take it.”

“My grandson’s doing,” said Earl, nodding at the stand. “He grows all this shit in his hothouse. Out Hawkshead way. He’s queer as a French horn but he’s a good boy. A crime against nature, the wife used to say. But she’s dead now. And the stuff sells, eh? City people buy this crap. Cross-country skiers and snowshoers with their fancy getup.”

I smiled because he was smiling. “This is for the okra.” I rolled a double sawbuck into the shape of a cylinder and pushed it into Earl’s sweater pocket. It seemed like a gesture the old man would appreciate.

Inside the van I coaxed the cat out from under the seat with a handful of Pounce, which I hand-fed her as she wobbled on my lap. She sniffed at the okra in my other hand, but let it be. Then returned to the passenger seat, sitting upright, staring calmly straight ahead. Home, James.

While struggling with the ignition, I glimpsed a snowplow at the top of the lane, blade up, coming at me at a fair clip. As it rumbled closer and closer I realized it wasn’t going to stop.
Surely it would stop … The cat jumped down, but I grabbed her before she could wriggle under the seat. I put her inside my coat, hurled the door open and leapt out.

The snowplow stopped, its blade an inch or two from my windshield. The driver leaned out the window, cackling. It was the same black-bearded man. « We meet again,
mon ami!
»

Yeah, long time no smell. I got back to my feet and set down the terrified cat onto the driver’s seat. I closed the door as the driver turned off his engine.

« Had you goin’, eh? Thought I was going to ram you? » His voice was even more nasal than before, to the extent that a clothes peg seemed to have been clipped onto his nose.

After wiping snow from my mouth, I conceded that ramming had crossed my mind.

« Now
that
was funny. Shoulda seen your face, eh? Wait’ll I tell the guys back at the garage. I’m famous for that kind of stuff round here. You’ll see. »

I told him it was one of the cleverest practical jokes ever played on me, and that I looked forward to seeing further examples of his work.

The snowplower blew out another high-pitched witch’s cackle but stopped on a dime. He glared, breathing through enlarged nostrils, like an annoyed bull. «You messin’ with me? You mess with me I’ll take your teeth out with a wrench. »

I retorted in an unworded way.

He scratched at his beard with gloved fingers. « Time to scrap that shitheap, eh? Looks like it’s been painted by a five-year-old. Then rolled down a mountainside. »

« It runs. »

« It wouldn’t outrun a fatman. »

« It’d outrun your plow. »

The driver spat in the direction of a snowbank, without quite reaching it. By my foot was a viscous ball of speckled matter resembling toad spawn.

« You don’t know who I am, do you? »

I waited to find out.

« Champion two years running of the Truck Rodeo, that’s who. Over in Notre-Dame-du-Nord? Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of that. » He looked me hard in the face, defying me to tell him that.

I closed my eyes and pressed a finger upon my forehead. « I did hear about that, yeah. You were on
Oprah
, right? You and your truck? »

The driver considered the question briefly, his head at a quizzical-dog angle. « You messin’ with me again? Like some wiseacre city fuck? You mess with me I’ll make you cry. I coulda squashed you like a ladybug in your little Kraut van. Still can. »

I glanced over at the snowplow. While nodding in agreement I noticed something about its municipality markings. The letters had not been painted by a professional with a straight edge and steady hand. Or by someone who knew how to spell.

« I can do a 12.7, 12.8 quarter-mile in a semi, eh? »

I think you have me confused with somebody who gives a shit. « Very impressive. »

« You bet your ass it’s impressive. » He belched. The cabbagey rot of his molars, mixed with whatever homebrew he’d been drinking—juniper berry and brake fluid—drifted toward me. « When you gonna get that coil fixed? »

« Coil? »

« Ignition. »

We’d had trouble with it the day he gave me a boost. I shrugged.

« And your exhaust. Sounds bad, eh? Cam and headers and God knows what else. »

I tend to procrastinate when it comes to repairs, when it comes to doctors or dentists or lawyers or mechanics. I treat my car the way I treat my life.

« Why don’t you just hot-wire the sonofabitch? » he said.

Hot-wire the sonofabitch? I couldn’t hot-wire a toaster.

« I’ll do it, » he offered with the confidence of one who’d helped make Quebec the car-theft epicentre of Canada. « Simple as pissing in an ashtray. »

A literal translation. « No, it’ll kick in. »

« Done it just about everywhere. All over this country, stateside too. I’ve been in just about every goddamn place and done just about every goddamn thing. Except one. Wanna take a guess at what that is? The one thing I never done? Go on, take a guess. »

“Uh, let me see … used a toothbrush?” is not what I said. I was still picturing the van being squashed like a ladybug. I simply shrugged.

« I never went down on a dwarf. » His head went back and a series of loud guffaws exploded from his mouth.

At this flash of wit we both laughed, until his gasps and chokes subsided. « The bank manager turn you down? » I asked.

His wide grin vanished, quick as a wink, again turning into that confused-dog look. « What’s that supposed to mean? You messin’ with me again, city boy? You mess with me I’ll lay you out flat and stomp on your head. Goodbye nose, goodbye teeth. »

This was his second threat involving teeth. Perhaps instead of snowplowing he should’ve gone into dentistry. From his higher vantage he began to stare at something on
the passenger seat of the van. The cat? « I seen your van back there, eh? » He nodded south, in the direction of the real estate office. « Plannin’ on buyin’ somethin’ in this lovely neck of the woods? »

« Maybe. »

« The Anglo church? »

How did he know that? I shrugged.

He climbed down from his rig. « I got you pegged for the new warden, workin’ undercover like. Am I right?” He gave me an assessing squint while sticking a cigarette into the wiry scrub of his beard. « And that there’s your showcar. »

« My what? »

« Showcar. For buys. Stings. »

I nodded. Did he mean for drugs? « Drugs? »

« No, nimrod, not drugs. Bear galls, paws, eagle feathers, that kind of thing. But I guess you wouldn’t tell me if you was now, would you. »

This was the second time in one day that I had been called a nimrod. It means hunter. The “mighty hunter before the Lord” in Genesis. « No, I suppose not. »

« Got yourself a good disguise in any case. The hair, clothes, hat. You were smart, you fooled me. »

That wouldn’t make me smart.

« Get yourself a mask and you can go trick-or-treatin’ as Zorro. » He snorted porcinely before taking a long haul on his cigarette, halving it. « And that’s why you’ve been splashin’ them U.S. dollars around. Like you’re a dealer, am I right? »

Was I being tailed? Where did he get this information?

He picked a fleck of tobacco from his lower lip. « So I guess you heard what happened a few months back to one of your … comrades. Ranger or warden or animal-lover or whatever you want to call him. »

I shrugged.

« Now that surprises me, that surprises me a lot. It was a big story up in these parts. Where are you from, anyway? France? »

Despite the cold, the driver’s coat was unzippered and shirt unbuttoned, displaying the hairiest chest I’d seen outside a zoo. « Yes. »

He shook out an unfiltered cigarette and offered the pack to me. « ‘The French they are a funny race, they fight with their feet and fuck with their face.’ My uncle used to say that. ’Cause you guys invented sixty-nine, eh? »

I was no longer much of a smoker but took what was offered—a brand called Hawks—and the driver tossed me a book of matches. On its cover was a platinum blonde with a seemingly inflatable bust, the same image as on Earl’s playing cards. The French
invented
sixty-nine? « So what happened to the game warden? »