The Ravine (30 page)

“You guys. You guys never did really understand what was going on. You never watched enough television. I practically had to beg you to join me in that escape attempt and, Jay, let me point out, I myself was in the clear, I could have kept going. But I came back. The point is, I knew Ted and Tony …”

“Tom and Terry.”

“Father Norman, what were their names?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know. It was such a long time ago.”

“I knew they were going to check the knot. And they did.”

“No, they didn’t.”

“Sure they did. It’s in my book. They said, ‘Philly Four-Eyes is a tricky little bastard.’”

“Just because it’s in your book doesn’t mean it happened,” Jay says. “They never checked the knot.”

“I remember.”

“No, you don’t, Phil.”

“I’m pretty sure they checked the knot, and if it had been a trick knot, who knows what might have happened?”

“We are not discussing what
might
have happened. We are discussing what
did
happen.”

“Look, Jay. I didn’t want to die alone. Okay?
That’s
why I tied you to a tree. Satisfied?”

“Well … we’re getting there.”

“If I was going to get slaughtered by those fuck-pigs, I wanted to be with you. I wanted you to be with me.”

“I forgive you.”

“What?”

“I understand. You didn’t want to die alone. You wanted to die with me there. So you tied me to a tree. It’s not a decision I can really get behind intellectually, but I suppose I can understand it. After all, I’m your brother. So I forgive you.”

“I don’t see how you can be pissed off for so long and then just forgive me.”

“That’s because you don’t understand—
-yet
—what is so wonderful about human beings.”

“Well put, Jay,” says Norman. “Have you ever considered the vocation?”

“In my own way, Norm. In my own way. Let us pray.”

“Yes. Good idea. We in the United Church tend not to be so, um,
dramatic
about it—”

“Akela!” Jay’s voice rings, golden and pure, in the empty church.

“We will do our best,” chants Reverend Norm.

“Dib dib dib…”

“Dob dob dob …”

The sun has continued its journey across the sky, and the light that comes through the stained-glass window now illuminates our tear-glistened cheeks.

The timing of our departure from Thunder Bay, combined with the cruising speed of the Dodge Super Bee, meant that when we were ready to stop for the night we were just a few kilometres away from the Shady Rest Motel. We decided to stop there. At least, I decided we should stop. Jay thought we should drive through the night, allow the rusted-out land shark the freedom to prowl in the darkness. He
always was a romantic at heart. The girls wanted nothing to do with that place. “Daddy,” they chastised me, “the bathroom walls say
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
And the guy running it is like really, really a creepazoid.” But I insisted. Maybe I was just exhausted, maybe—and here we’re getting close to the truth—I knew that the Shady Rest had a bar attached, the Luau Lounge, and I was just a tiny bit thirsty. Whatever. My will prevailed.

When we pulled into the empty parking lot, the odometer on the mighty Dodge, the Super Bee, had rolled to 299,999 miles. The last little white roller was stuck between numbers.

There was a woman behind the check-in counter this time, a large matronly woman who clucked over the girls and made us all feel better. This woman (perhaps forty-three years of age, perhaps as many pounds overweight) wore a man’s wife-beater. It was inadequate.

Anyway, the girls were tired and wanted to go straight to bed. I supervised the hair-and tooth-brushing, standing in the doorway that separated the bathroom and the bedroom. Then I pulled out the banjo and sang a few verses of “The Window.”

What, I didn’t tell you that I brought my banjo with me? I tossed it into the trunk when Jay came to pick me up, just after my wife had left on a Mexican holiday with her young lover. Look, you readers shouldn’t be so suspicious at this point in the game. I’m heading toward the finish line here, and I’d appreciate your support. After all, I’m limping and stumbling and starting to lose it.

I went outside and trod the wobbly walkway to the door marked “114.” I could hear my brother’s muffled voice coming from the other side. “Jay!” I called. “Hurry up. The book’s almost finished.”

He pulled the door open. He held the almost antique telephone base in one hand, and had the receiver squeezed between his shoulder and his ear. He muttered, “Look, I’ll talk to you later,” into the mouthpiece and ejected the receiver from the crook of his neck, catching it as it hurtled toward the ground.

“Who were you talking to?”

“Ex-wife number four,” he answered. “What’s up?”

“Let’s go get a drink.”

My brother eyed me suspiciously.

“What?” I said. “Did you think that all of a sudden we wouldn’t be fucked up?”

“Well, I was
trying,”
he argued. “I mean, look.” He gestured with the telephone. “I was reaching out.”

“Yeah. But it’s not over. I don’t know what’s supposed to happen, but it’s not over. It’s
almost
over.”

“Say what?”

“My book isn’t finished.”

“Well, can’t you just make something up?”

“I
am
making something up.”

“Huh?”

“Let’s just go get a drink, okay? You and I have had drinks before. Like you said, we’re alcoholics.”

“Oh, all right.” Jay grabbed a windbreaker for the journey across the tarmac. “I
was
looking forward to a nice little wank.”

“Now
that’s
reaching out.”

“Let’s go.”

We entered the Luau Lounge, which seemed unaccountably gloomy, and stood still and waited for our eyes to adjust from the starlit night to deep shadow. In my case the wait was fated to be long—in point of fact, my eyes are incapable of adjusting—so I was still rather blind when I heard a voice say, “Hey. It’s you guys.”

Todd seemed subdued, even depressed.

“Hey there, hi there, ho there,” whispered my brother.

I could see that Todd stood beside the bar. He gestured with something (was that a gun?) at a figure slumped over the countertop. (It was a gun!) “Les pissed me off. He couldn’t stop talking about cunts.”

“Todd?” said my brother. “I think we should call the police now.”

“Right,” snorted Todd. “Like
that’s
gonna happen. Come off it.”

“I’ve got children,” I offered meekly.

“I’ve got children, too,” Todd snapped. “Twin girls. Fifteen years of age. I’m not allowed within a mile of them. Why? Am I some kind of monster? Well, that’s what the Court of Cunts says, that I’m a fucking monster, so I figure what the hey? Les wouldn’t shut up, so bango-bingo. How about you assholes?”

“We’ll shut up.”

“You
might.” Todd waved the gun at me. “I’m not so sure about your brother.”

“He’ll shut up.”

“Tell you what,” said Todd. “Let’s shut him the fuck up.”

Todd set down his beer bottle (he had been holding the gun in his right hand, a brewski in the left), reached behind and threw up the hinged leaf that allowed staff behind the bar proper. He backed up, training the gun on us with such concentration that he was actually biting the tip of his tongue, and began rooting around back there.

I could see better now, enough that I took note that Les the bartender had only half a head left.

“So like, where have you guys been for the last couple of days?”

“In, um, Thunder Bay.”

Jay said, “Todd, you don’t want to make this any worse than it has to be.”

“How much worse can it get? I’m already going to the gas chamber.”

“No you’re not.”

“Huh?”

“We don’t have the gas chamber in Canada.”

“Here we go!” Todd had come up with a roll of duct tape and some lengths of rope. He held them up in the air triumphantly and wiggled back toward us. “Let’s shut your brother up, Phil!”

“I’m not going to—”

“Or
… I could just shoot you both. Bang-bang. What do you think?” He tossed me the rope. “So I think you should just shut the fuck up and tie your brother’s hands together.”

“Shoot us both,” I said.

“Huh?”

“Do it, Todd. Like you said. Bang-bang.”

“Don’t take the easy way out, Phil,” Jay said. “I think you should tie me up.”

I searched my brother’s face. I detected a small movement in his eyes, an intense whorliness. I’d seen this before, years and years ago, when as kids we experimented with extrasensory perception and silent thought transference.

“Okay, Jay? Jay, listen. I’m going to tie you up, now. I’m going to tie an
Irish Sheepshank.”

At this, Todd’s head bounced like that of a bobble-head doll. “Don’t do that, goofus,” he said. “He can just pull that knot apart. Tie something good.”

“Um,” I asked, “were you a Wolf Cub?”

“Dib dib dib dob dob dob get a job.
Or however that goes. So tie something good. A Buntline Hitch. That’s like the best knot there is.”

“Oh.” I held the piece of rope up and looked at it. I imagine that my look was more than pitiful.

“You know that one, Philly Four-Eyes?” asked Todd.

I nodded. “Yeah, I know how to tie a Buntline Hitch.”

“So do it. Before I shoot the both of you cunts.”

“Jay, I—”

“It’s okay.” Jay folded his huge hands together and proffered them.

I looked at Jay and tried to communicate that I was
still
going to tie the Irish Sheepshank, but even as I did so, we heard Todd say, “And I’m going to check that knot, too! So make it a good one.”

“Make it a good one, Phil,” my brother told me. He winked—at least, I think I saw him wink, but it may have been a tic, or he may have been trying to dam the tears.

I bound his wrists together—

“Make it a
really
good one, Phil,” said Jay, which confused me a little.

—and looped the rope between his hands, and then I took the two ends and secured them with a Buntline Hitch, which is (Todd was correct in this) the best knot there is.

“Done.”

“Sit him down and tie up his feet, too.”

This was done. I kept trying to think of a plan. On television, the heroes seemed able to devise plans in a trice. Indeed, Padre needed hardly any time at all to work out a feasible strategy, and sometimes circumstances were such that he had to do this twice, three times an episode. But the only plan I could come up with was to run away, and hope that the bullets lodged non-lethally in my butt-fat.

Todd checked the knots. Apparently they passed muster. “Now put some of that duct tape over his mouth.”

I picked up the roll of tape and noted that it had a surprising amount of weight to it, and then, miraculously, I formulated a plan. First of all, I would distract Todd. This could be pretty easily accomplished, I thought. Indeed, I didn’t think I would have to do much more than suddenly point, and exclaim, “Hey! What’s that over there?” Then, see, I would hurl the roll of tape at the gun, knock it from his pudgy hand, race over and claim it, hog-tie the motherfucker—well, the rest of the plan would work itself out. The salient point was the neutralization of the gun.

Unfortunately, before I could enact any of this, a sound intruded upon our collective senses. A siren.

“Oh, fuck.” Todd wrapped his arm around my neck suddenly and pulled me close. He pressed the barrel of the gun into my temple and breathed all over me, softly, intimately, as though we were lovers. “Looks like it’s just you and me, Philly Four-Eyes.”

We listened to the siren grow louder and louder, until it was a scream that echoed throughout the land. I kept thinking it was as loud as it could possibly get, but it kept coming, some horribly hungry beast—

Then, suddenly, there was silence, and the sound of car doors opening and slamming shut.

“Here we go,” said Todd.

“Todd Benson!” The voice came from just beyond the front door. “Come out with your hands up!”

Todd put his lips to my ear. “Did you know they actually said that?”

“No,” I admitted.

“Just like on television,” noted Todd, to which I could only nod dumbly. Then he raised his voice. “Don’t come in!”

As he spoke the words, the door to the Luau Lounge burst open and two OPP officers entered, weapons drawn. They planted their
feet firmly and stood side by side, remaining as close as possible for comfort and solace. They levelled their side arms.

“Release the hostage.”

The OPP officers looked terrified, which I didn’t count as good news. It was pretty clear to me that neither had ever used his gun. Their hands trembled and sweat threatened to blind them.

“Release the hostage,” repeated Officer A.

“No, I don’t think I’m gonna do that, because then you’ll shoot me.”

“No we won’t,” said Officer B.