Waiting for Joe (2 page)

“Oh, I had a feeling it was you. You’ve been on my mind for days. I said to Ken, ‘We’re going to hear from Joe.’”

Joe leans into Maryanne’s familiar voice, wants to sink into it.

“I’ve been meaning to get in touch with you for ages,” he says. It’s his way of acknowledging that he’s not replied to their many telephone and email messages; the years of silence passing between them.

“It’s Joe,” she calls out, and Joe hears a phone being picked up.

“Joe,” Pastor Ken exclaims. “How’s it going, little brother?”

Joe listens for disappointment or regret and fails to detect either. “What time is it there?” he asks. They sound as though they’ve been asleep, and he realizes that even with the time difference, it’s past midnight in Vancouver.

“Listen, Joe, any time you want to call is the right time,” Pastor Ken says.

“I’ve lost my business.” Joe gets it out there before he can’t.
I’ve lost the house, my father
.

Lost, as though the Happy Traveler, his home, his dad, wandered off and he’s been unable to find them.

“Joe. Oh, no,” Maryanne says.

“How?” Pastor Ken jumps in to ask.

“It’s been coming for a while now. Last year business was really bad, but ever since 9/11, things haven’t been great.”

“People stopped travelling then,” Pastor Ken says.

“Yes.” Joe does not say that although he’d incorporated, when the business began to falter he’d taken out a mortgage on the house. The small property Laurie had inherited from her grandmother, along with a time-share in a townhouse in Tofino, had gone as collateral against his line of credit.

He does not say he’d driven past the entrance to the industrial park on some mornings to head out along the highway, his eyes following the zinging arc of the frost-silvered hydro wires as they dipped down and up from poles, driving out a bit farther each time. Sometimes he would pull over and sit for a moment before heading back, watch for the doe and her yearling to emerge from the scrub bush near the city dump.

“I got behind on things. Behind a year on the lease of the shop. And then the bank foreclosed on the house.”

He receives their immediate outpouring of condolences, as waves swell and threaten to crash over his head. Those two lifeguards. They had rescued him at a time when he’d most needed someone to be there.

He takes a deep breath to calm his voice. “You should see the area now, you wouldn’t recognize it. They call it the Juba Industrial Park.”

When he’d first opened the Happy Traveler, it had been the largest of the single proprietorship businesses in the area, the brake and carburetor shops, sandblasting and paint garages. Then the land was sold and developed and most of those enterprises moved, or shut down. Spur rail lines bringing in tons of crushed vehicles, scrap metal being turned into gold—he couldn’t understand, get a handle on how any of this worked. But he’d stayed and incorporated. Expanded. Went into boats and ATVs, RV storage and repairs.

“You know what, Joe? It’s like you’ve lost a child,” Maryanne says. “A man’s business is like that to him. It’s his child. You’re grieving.”

The yellow light shining in the fan of the front door of the house becomes a blur, and Joe turns away, shivering now with the dampness and cold emanating from the asphalt.

“Where are you?” Pastor Ken asks and when Joe tells him, he says, “So are you heading this way, then? We’d sure love to see you, guy. It’s been far too long.”

“Well no, I wasn’t planning to. I’ve got a job right now at Canadian Tire. For a few days, anyway. Until me and another guy finish putting together the garden centre. I should
have enough cash by then to get to Fort McMurray. You remember Steve? He’s living there now. I’m hoping he’ll have some leads on work.”

“Steve Greyeyes,” Maryanne says. “Of course we remember him.”

“I need to find a job, and fast,” Joe says, thinking of the promise he made to his father—the move to Deere Lodge is only temporary. This is the lie he also tells himself—that no matter where he is he’ll return to Winnipeg and set the record straight. When he has the means he’ll make whatever arrangements are necessary to move Alfred in with them, wherever that may be.

“Is that what you want to do, Joe? Go to Fort McMurray?” Pastor Ken asks.

“It’ll do for now,” Joe says and gives a ragged laugh.

“Remember, Joe, you’re God’s kid. He wants only the best for you,” Maryanne says, echoed by Pastor Ken’s “Amen to that.”

“Can we pray for you, Joe? Ken and I have been thinking about you so often lately. Now we know why.”

“I haven’t got much time left on this phone,” Joe says quickly, thinking they mean to begin praying now.

Maryanne laughs. “It’s okay, Joe. You don’t need to be in on this. God is, and that’s what counts.”

“Promise you’ll keep in touch,” Pastor Ken adds. “And if there’s anything we can do, all you have to do is ask, little buddy. Anything at all.”

“Thanks,” Joe says. Although he wants to hold onto their voices for a while longer, he needs the time he’s got left on the cell to stay connected to Alfred. He hangs up without saying goodbye.

He turns toward the motorhome and sees his own footprints in the sheen of frost. He can smell it, like wet sawdust and must. Like the odour of the tin-sided garage whose earth floor hadn’t been exposed to sunlight for years. The scent sometimes clung to his mother’s sweater when she’d been out there cleaning storm windows, or refinishing a piece of furniture. It is a time he can scarcely recall, although he’d lived all his life in his parents’ house on Arlington Street.

Once inside, he undresses quickly, knowing from Laurie’s stillness that she’s asleep. He climbs into bed, careful not to wake her. There’s a sudden sharp snapping, the skin of the Meridian contracting in the dropping temperature. He closes his eyes, remembering how the walls in the empty showroom would snap during winter, startling him so that he would sometimes go and see if someone had come in without him knowing. He recalls then, how in late afternoon the sunlight retreated from the land out back, the wind-sculpted snowdrifts looking like waves on a sea. That’s when the doe and her yearling would emerge from the scrub bush, like faint beige brush strokes as they minced along the deep ruts worn through heavy snow and down into the ditch beside the road where they would be sheltered from the wind. Minus thirty without the wind chill, while inside the Happy Traveler the heaters hummed and surged.

When Joe comes down the steps of the Meridian the next morning on his way to Canadian Tire, the traffic on Albert Street is already heavy, a steady one-way flow toward the city centre. Although the sky is overcast, he squints against the brightness of daylight, shivers as he tugs the cords on
his hoodie to draw it snug against his neck. He goes round the front of the Meridian, its broad windshield running with moisture, and then down along its side, startling several gulls into flight. He inspects the motorhome for deflated tires, scratches, the chalky spatter of bird feces. Should there be any damage he has no recourse, and so he practises vigilance, hoping it is enough to ward off an attack.

He looks up to see if the pot of greenery has appeared on the third-floor balcony of an apartment building across Gibson Road. Last night when he went to pick up the pizza, the plant was gone. Whoever puts it out in the morning gets up early. A woman, he thinks. Hell of a struggle, given that it’s the size of a small tree. Maybe she came out onto the balcony in a terry robe. He thinks of Laurie sprawled across the bed, her breasts a surprise of white in contrast to the deep tan of her body; the welcome in Maryanne Lewis’s voice.

Here and there cars are parked on the lot, belonging to employees, he guesses, and beyond Walmart at the entrance of Sunrise Mall, he sees the blocky figure—mall security—standing just inside the doors waiting to check the employees through as they arrive. The windows of Walmart and the shopping mall are like mirrors and conceal what he imagines goes on before opening, the quiet scurry of employees rearranging the merchandise to create the impression that every day is the first day of business, as others keep their eyes fixed on computer screens placing orders and checking inventory.

He runs his hand along the side of the Meridian as though it’s a horse, thinking that he’d like to be able to say he left it in the same condition as when he stole it. Except,
of course, for the mileage. He squats and peers into the wheel well, reassures himself that he has some time before the receiver takes an inventory of his defunct business and discovers that the Meridian is gone. When he hears Laurie moving about in the motorhome he rises from his squat.

He crosses the short distance between the parking lot and the sidewalk beyond it, and then Gibson Road, empty of traffic at this time of day. The lights flash amber in all directions, as they will until the shopping mall opens in an hour, and again in the evening after it closes.

Several blocks beyond the traffic lights, Gibson Road comes to an end in country where the Trans-Canada Highway curves west past the airport and rises through a gentle ridge of smoke-blue hills. After they fled Winnipeg, Joe at first stayed clear of the highway. He took a longer route through a winding valley, under a sky that looked heavy and threatened rain. But when the fuel gauge hit the halfway mark and began sinking rapidly, he joined up with the Trans-Canada, where he was more likely to find diesel.

He reaches the parking lot at Boston Pizza, thinking that the air smells like high altitude, like the mountains, clean and thin.
Are you heading this way?
If he left now he could be in the Rockies within a day and a half.

“Joe,” Laurie calls, and he turns to see her, her robe a flash of purple satin as she tiptoes alongside the motorhome and over to the sidewalk where she stops, crimps the robe closed at her neck and holds out a paper bag. His lunch, the sandwiches she made last night.
One loaf of bread: $2.35, Ham: $3.49
, she entered in the notebook she had bought at Walmart the day they arrived.
Walnut Crest, $11.95
, Laurie jotted in the notebook, giving herself a pat
on the back for not having bought a more expensive Australian shiraz.

As he retraces his steps he sees that her lips are stained with the wine she drank while watching
24
last night, the
kachunk kachunk
soundtrack accentuating the quickness of their pulses. Joe sat at the dinette, the remains of the pizza and bottle of wine on the table before him. Laurie curled up on the lounger, rising now and again to top up her glass, the scent of Wish, her perfume, lingering. She came across it years ago in a duty-free. She likes the bottle, a heavy piece of glass shaped like a diamond. Wish, a state of desire. A wish for something more, for a happy ending.

He takes the bag from Laurie without speaking or meeting her eyes, but he notices that she’s come after him without stopping to put on shoes and that her toes are scrunched up against the cold.

“You’re going to freeze, you’d better get inside,” he says, without the usual undertow of anger.

“Should I come down and meet you later?” Her green eyes roam across Joe’s face in a fruitless search for warmth.

“Do whatever you want,” he says.

He sees her lips come together and stretch across her face in a prelude to crying. He suddenly wants her heat. His need to move beyond the ache in his body causes him to reach out and haul her in against himself, wrapping his arms around her.

“Joe,” she says, caught by surprise, then she slumps into him, her knees giving way in relief.

He scoops her up into his arms and as he carries her to the door of the Meridian, sunlight breaks through the wind-driven stratus clouds. The wet parking lot shines,
gulls call out as they wheel across the clearing sky. The apartment blocks along Gibson Road look as though they’ve just been freshly coloured in with white chalk.

Laurie sees a woman standing at a balcony railing, her long beige tunic and dark head covering blowing sideways in a brief tide of wind. Joe sets her down at the foot of the steps and moves his hands to her buttocks, urges her to hurry up and get inside.

They fall together on the bed. The long spell of silence between them has made them hungry for each other. Just so much has happened to them, and in such a short time. It’s as though a pyramid has come crumbling down around them and they’re buried, hardly breathing, and unable to think how they might begin to dig themselves out. Joe on top of Laurie, as he wriggles free of his jeans, and then Laurie on top of Joe, struggling to undo the buttons on his shirt, feeling the thickness of his penis against her stomach. Again they roll, Laurie beneath him now. She takes his face between her hands and says, “Hello.”

Hello, hello, Laurie thinks, as Joe moves inside her, her nose turning red, as it always does when she cries.

Moments later they lie side by side, their bodies slick with perspiration. Laurie begins to feel the chill, like a hand sweeping across her. She turns to Joe and rests her head on his shoulder, listens to the large thump of his heart. Yes. Thick dark curls hug the nape of his tanned neck, intermingled with a mat of white wiry frizz that creeps up the back and sides of it. Sometimes when he was between haircuts she had shaved the frizz off with his razor and scattered it across the yard, thinking the birds would gather it for their nests.

She thinks to tell him that in the mall Winners has a sign advertising for help and that she wants to apply, although she knows that he’ll object, that they aren’t going to be in Regina longer than several more days. And what does she know about retail sales? Nothing. But she believes that a life spent being a consumer is qualification enough. There are also signs posted for waiters and kitchen help at Kelsey’s and Montana’s, and for part-time ticket sellers at the Galaxy Theatre.

She needs to find ways to spend the day, other than going from store to store in the mall, passing time in the food court nibbling on biscotti and sipping burnt coffee, imagining the lives of the people congregating at the tables as though they’re one large gregarious family. She watches the security men, most of them oversized and red-faced, their bodies thick as greasy sausages stuffed into their navy polyester uniforms. They lounge about the security office door, or stroll through the food court ogling the half-dressed schoolgirls shoplifting at the Dollardrama. She silently vows not to spend a nickel more than what’s necessary.