Unhooking the Moon (10 page)

Eventually we made our way back to the bus depot while dodging the homeless people who loitered like zombies. Toronto's homeless people are nowhere near as nice as Winnipeg's. I'm not just saying that, it's true. Anyway, we avoided giving them money and, collecting our rucksacks, we headed back to the quay.

It was getting hot and we wanted to take a nap, and so unlocking our bikes we looked for the park we had ridden through earlier that morning. There were lots of people along the waterfront by then. They strolled or sunbathed or got in our way as we rode. When we found the park we removed our rucksacks and lay under a solitary tree. The grass was springy and cool and comfortable to lie on. I don't care how nice the Rat said the boxcar's spirit was. I never got a decent night's sleep. But who can sleep on floorboards?

The Rat put her head on her rucksack and closed her eyes. ‘Wake me up if something interesting happens.'

She was dreaming in Disneyworld if she thought I was going to stay awake. I closed my eyes and allowed the sun to create patterns like a kaleidoscope. The patterns turned into images and the images turned into dreams. I slept while listening to the children play and the parents shout and the Rat who snored like a rodent.

* * *

When I woke she wasn't there. Her bike and rucksack were there, but she wasn't. Standing up, I saw her on the boardwalk looking out at the lake. Shaking my head, I walked towards her. Just then some guy stopped to talk to her. He had cameras around his belly. The Rat's hands went to her hips, never a good sign.

‘Am I lost?' I heard her say. ‘I'm not lost, you goddamn paedophile! Now beat it or I'll call the cops!'

The man staggered back and carried on going.

‘Go on, beep off!'

I ran towards her. ‘What did he say?'

The Rat screwed up her face and stared hard at the retreating man. ‘Oh no!'

‘What?'

‘I thought he was a paedophile but he's not! Sorry, mister!' she shouted. ‘It's OK, I'm not lost! And thank you for your concern!'

The man couldn't get away fast enough.

‘Are you crazy? You can't go around saying things like that!'

‘Well pardon me, Bob, for making a mistake!'

She wandered over towards some bicycle couriers
and I went back to the bikes and sat there bewildered. She just didn't seem to understand certain things. Some days I thought she really was crazy. I watched her as she talked to the couriers, who seemed to be entertained by her. She looked normal enough, from a distance, and I couldn't see any signs of madness. But I swear the Rat was deranged in some way.

When she got bored with the couriers she wandered back towards me. ‘We follow the Gardener Expressway and then we follow the signs for Burlington, Hamilton, Niagara Falls, and Fort Erie, that's where the border is. They said it would take forever to cycle there, so we better get going. And they said we'll never get past the border patrol. But what do they know? They're grown men who ride around on bikes all day.' She knelt down and opened her rucksack. ‘I bought you a sandwich and some biscuits when you were asleep. You can have them when you're hungry. And I bought a large bottle of Coke. We can drink it along the way.' She put on her rucksack and stood up. ‘I'm having a good time so far, Bob. What about you?'

‘Sure,' I said. ‘Sure' was all I could think of. What else could I say? You're crazy and you're going to get us killed!

‘Well, we better get going,' she said. ‘And as we
can't ride on the expressway, we'll have to follow it as best we can.'

So that's what we did. We mounted up and followed the expressway as best we could.

It was dark. The road we were on was long like a freeway except it was empty of traffic. There wasn't even a house nearby. We had been riding for I don't know how many hours and a lot of it had been off-road. My butt ached with the saddle and my hands ached with gripping the handlebars. My rucksack seemed to have gained in weight and it stuck to my damp T-shirt. And to add to my discomfort, I was now confused. We had been following the signs for Hamilton and then we were supposed to follow the signs for Niagara Falls. But now the signs for Niagara Falls were pointing back the way we came.

I turned to see the Rat in the streetlight. The Rat was pretty tough, she never complained, but her face looked pale and her rucksack looked too big for her.

‘Would you like to have a rest?'

She nodded and climbed slowly from her bike. We
pushed the bikes up a low hill, that ran alongside the road, and laid them behind some bushes.

‘We'll rest here,' I told her, ‘in case the cops come along.' I helped her take off her rucksack and I untied her sleeping bag for her. ‘It's a bit cold. Why don't you get in and sleep for a while?' She crawled into her sleeping bag and curled up without a word. I undid my sleeping bag and did the same. ‘We'll try again in the morning,' I told her.

I was shivering, the ground was damp with dew, but it wasn't so much the cold as fatigue. I wanted to sleep but I couldn't. I just lay there wishing I was in a warm bed in Winnipeg. Me and the Rat had never been so lost. We were in a dark place in the middle of nowhere and there was no one to call for help.

I remember a dark winter's night when we had ridden home from town. The wind blasted frosty snow into our eyes all the way. When we reached the house the Rat dropped her bike and ran inside, but I didn't. I looked through the kitchen window, where the snow had stuck like an arc, and I watched the Old Man take bread from the oven. Then he attached a toy snowman to the kitchen cupboard and standing back he looked at it. The Rat came in and, taking off her coat, she talked about her day. It was such a
picture. It was bitterly cold but I didn't care because I knew I could be in that warmth when I wanted.

I was desperate for that warmth now. And for the first time I thought about going to the cops and giving ourselves up. It's not like we had done anything wrong, but I felt we were on the run from the proper authorities, those people who would put us in a home without a moment's hesitation.

But maybe they wouldn't be so bad. They might find us somewhere nice to live. I turned to ask the Rat what she thought. Her eyes were closed and she looked so drained, just like she did on that winter's night. The Rat would never think about giving herself up, no matter how bad things got. And when I thought about it, neither would I. If they wanted us they'd have to come and get us. And who said we'd stay where they put us.

Suddenly a car screeched to a stop below us. Another one followed. The Rat was already out of her sleeping bag and sneaking behind a bush. The car doors slammed shut and two men came towards each other. One was young and slim. The other man was large and he had the stump of an unlit cigar in his mouth.

‘Joey. How's New York treating you?' asked the large man.

‘Badly as usual. You got the merchandise?'

‘I'm afraid not. I couldn't get it.'

‘What!'

The larger man laughed. ‘I'm just kidding.' He opened the trunk and they looked inside.

‘OK let's make this quick,' said the younger man.

They started to move packages from one car to the other. But they never went into the trunk of the second car, they went under the back seat.

‘They're drug dealers!' whispered the Rat.

‘Shush.'

After they were done the younger man handed the larger man an envelope and he scanned the contents. ‘Always a pleasure, Joey.' He shook hands and, getting in his car, he drove away. The younger man put a blanket over the back seat and, closing the door, he looked around him. Then getting in the car he started the engine. It turned over and over but it wouldn't start. He began to swear and bang on the steering wheel with his fist. That's when I saw the Rat rolling down the hill on her bike.

‘What's wrong, mister?' She pulled up at the side of the car. ‘Won't it start?'

The look he gave her was more than cold. He got out the car slowly and looked around him. ‘Where
did you come from? What are you doing out here?'

I was down there as quick as I could. ‘She don't mean nothing, mister.'

He looked even angrier when he saw me.

‘We're searching for our uncle,' said the Rat. ‘He's a drug dealer too.'

‘Get lost, kid!'

‘Come away,' I told her.

‘There's no need to be mean,' said the Rat. ‘We we're just being friendly. We only wanted to help.'

The man's face seemed to soften. ‘Yeah well I'm having a bad night! I'm out of gas and I have to get back to New York!'

‘We passed a gas station two miles back,' I told him.

‘Two miles, you say?'

‘If you've got a can we'll go get it for you,' said the Rat. ‘We're pretty fast on our bikes.'

‘That would really help me out! And I didn't mean to snap,' he said opening the trunk. ‘But you gave me quite a surprise.'

But then he started swearing and banging things around because there was no can in the trunk.

‘Do you believe that? The only time I run out of gas and I have no – '

The Rat drank the last of the Coke from the plastic
container and burping loudly she screwed on the cap.

‘Boy, am I glad I ran into you. OK here's five dollars. That should be enough.'

‘We won't be long,' said the Rat taking the money.

‘Hey, you kids ain't gonna ride off with my five bucks, are you?'

‘Sure,' said the Rat. ‘That's what we do. We wait in the middle of nowhere hoping that someone will break down. And when they do we ride off with their gas money.'

The guy looked bewildered. ‘Everyone's a wise guy tonight,' he said in this winning New York accent. ‘I don't know what it is.'

We rode to the gas station where we got told by the attendant that we shouldn't be out so late or filling bottles with gas from the pumps, but who still bid us a good evening and told us to come again. Then we rode back to the guy while eating the candy bars we had bought with his change.

‘Why you said we'd go for gas for him I don't know. I bet he wouldn't do it for us.'

‘We don't use gas, Bob. Anyway he has a good spirit. And he's going to New York!'

‘He won't give us a ride.'

The Rat smiled confidently. ‘We'll see.'

When he saw us coming he looked plenty relieved.

‘Oh, you kids are the best! Just let me fill her up and I'll give you a nice tip.'

I looked at him as he poured the gas in the car. He had slicked-back black hair that made him look tough and he was pretty mean to us at first. But now that he was happy, and my fear of him had gone, I could see he was only a young guy.

Throwing the empty container in the trunk, he jumped in the driver's seat and started the engine. ‘All right!'

‘Quick give me all your change!' said the Rat.

I handed her what coins I had.

‘Thanks, kids,' he said getting out the car.

The Rat added some notes and holding the money in both hands she offered it to him.

‘What's this?'

‘This is all we've got,' she said in a meek voice. ‘We really need to get to New York to find Uncle Jerome. If we don't, they'll put us in an orphanage!'

Those drama classes were really starting to pay off!

‘Ah look, kid. I'd like to help, but it'd look strange if I got caught at the border with two kids I'd only just met. I can't do it. But I really appreciate your help, I really do.'

‘It's OK,' said the Rat her meek voice getting meeker. ‘We'll get there somehow.'

Her sad look continued even when he gave her a twenty-dollar tip. And he looked more than a little guilty as he got in his car. ‘You kids look after yourselves.' But he drove away all the same.

‘That was a great performance,' I said. ‘And cradling the money in your hands like that, that was a really nice touch.'

But she mumbled miserably in French. She was such a bad loser, not gracious in defeat at all. But when the car stopped, the Rat's head turned towards me. She looked at me with her smug face, which was the most annoying of her faces. Then, when it began to reverse, she raised her eyebrows twice in victory. She knew I couldn't stand that. But on this occasion I didn't care.

‘Put your bikes in the trunk,' said the guy, ‘and try not to scratch the paintwork.'

We dumped our bikes and rucksacks in the trunk and jumped in the back seat.

‘My name's Marie Claire DeBillier and this is my brother Bob. And we're from Winnipeg.'

‘Well my name's Joey and I'm from cloud cuckoo land!' said Joey driving away. ‘I must be out of my mind doing this!'

‘It'll be OK,' said the Rat.

‘Yeah. Well, how am I gonna explain who you are when we get to the border?'

‘We'll think of something.'

‘Forget that. Just pretend to be asleep and with any luck they won't bother us.'

It felt cosy being in the car, especially after cycling so much, but as we neared the border everything became tense. We got through the Canadian side with no problem but then we came to the US side.

‘I can't stand these retards. They give everyone grief except the terrorists. Them they let in with open arms. You kids get under that blanket and pretend to be asleep.'

We drove into a brightly lit area and the car came to a stop.

‘Identification … Step out of the car and open the trunk.'

Joey switched off the engine and got out of the car. A flashlight shone in my face and then I heard the trunk pop open.

‘How long have you been in Canada?'

‘Just for the day.'

‘What's in the rucksacks?'

‘The rucksacks … well … I don't know – they're
not mine.'