Cadillac Couches (23 page)

I liked his patchouli flakiness and I was under the spell of his massage. This wasn't one of those foot-rub seduction routines either; I didn't feel like he was making any moves on me. Hippie love was exactly what I needed. Nurturing attention. Isobel might have been a bit bored, but I didn't care.

Jack and I slept out in the open that night. We unzipped our sleeping bags and zipped up one joint unibag, pretending it was necessary for warmth. The stars were out in full regalia: Orion, Little Dipper, Big Dipper, Cassiopeia. The fire crackled. In his arms, I felt the depression lifting, I had felt it lifting all night. I had the strange sensation that my forehead actually felt lighter, no longer shrouded. My eyes were heavy with a cozy sleep. I turned on my side, and Jack spooned me.

The next morning Isobel had the coffee going and the sandwich stuff out and ready. Jack was playing Hacky Sack by the lake. It was beautiful day. We decided to just drive a half-day and try to find another lake farther west to camp at.

I was ready to take the wheel, my lethargy had been replaced with effervescence. But Jack insisted; he said the pair of us had done a year's worth of driving in our almost cross-country tour.

As usual, nothing that interesting happened on the highway. Cars mostly overtook us. Rosimund could never really get much beyond ninety-five klicks; plenty of people seemed like they wanted to drive like assholes at one hundred and ninety. We turtled along in Manitoba, back into the heart of the prairies. The hills were way behind us, and we knew we'd be flatlining for a long while now. Ahead was a mesmerizing heat haze on the asphalt. I realized it was actually nice to have so much space on the horizon, a person could really breathe and stretch out in this landscape.

The day went by slowly. Four hundred slow kilometres took us seven hours with pee stops and stretch breaks. It was pretty quiet mostly. I liked having Jack with us. He had nice energy. I liked the look of his arm on the stick shift. I liked his sun-kissed skin. He said he'd take us kayaking if we came out to visit him in Vancouver. Isobel said she'd need to find some waterproof lipstick first and a seal-tight container for smokes. Could we have cocktails on the river?

Around five o'clock, we parked in an isolated campsite on a small lakefront near Brandon. We wanted to have every lake experience we could before getting back to city life.

I was on fire duty and had managed to get a blaze going. Jack was collecting six suitably large rocks from the beach to heat in the fire for the hut as well as three metre-long sticks. Luckily we already had a plastic tarp.

We had a perfect hut location right on the sandy little nook in front of our site. Jack started off by digging a hole in the ground not too deep and fairly wide, then placed the three sticks in a circle surrounding the hole for the frame's structure, and then I covered them with the tarp so that it looked like a makeshift tent, which he sealed with logs. All that was left unsealed was the opening. Isobel meanwhile was chopping vegetables and garlic and wrapping parcels to be placed on the fire's grill. She made a parcel of brie and three salmon steak ones, which we'd splashed out on in town for our last night on the road.

While we waited for the food and the rocks to heat up enough, we got out our air mattress, blew it up, and threw it in the water. The sun was still intense, so we took turns floating around in the warm shallow water. If you waded far enough, you could almost manage to get submerged up to your belly button. After about ten good minutes of floating, I realized that my shoulders were for some reason tensed up to my ears, so I consciously lowered them, which then made me fall splashing in the water. Isobel had a good laugh that made her whole body wobble so much that she fell in too with a shriek. Jack played Hacky Sack on the sand. Iz and I frolicked and swam and had water fights until we exhausted ourselves and dinner was ready.

The food was awesome. I noticed that Isobel was breaking into her dinner with incredible oomph, like I'd never seen before. She even hogged most of the cheese. I was amazed. I didn't ask her why she was finally eating. I just watched the healthy glow of her puffed-out cheeks while she chewed and chewed. After dinner, we drank a little whisky to help digest.

The rocks were looking good and red—it was almost time for hut. It was Isobel's first time, and she looked perturbed as I told her to take off all her clothes and climb underneath the blue tarp. Most first-time hutters found the experience a little frightening: the sudden heat, the opaque steam, scorching-hot air. Our three-man hut was fairly small, you had to crawl in and sit cross-legged and hunch-backed.

Jack and I carefully transported the rocks in a makeshift bucket/Frisbee from the firepit to the hole in the hut. I filled up a couple of empty Orangina bottles with water, took off my clothes, and crawled carefully into the hut. I had to admit, we had done a damn good job building the hut, though it was a little cramped. Funny thing about hut was that you didn't notice you were naked. I didn't think of it until I saw Isobel covering her breasts self-consciously. She was a skinny woman, beautiful but a bit surfboardlike with no roundy bits.

This was my first hut since the Sullivan days. I had missed it without realizing how much. I wanted her to love the hut experience as I did. I told her to breathe calmly, then I started gently pouring a stream of cool water on the burning rocks. The rocks hissed and let out a big cloud of super-hot steam. Instantly we were saturated in our own sweat. I had never been a sadistic hutter, like some who just keep pouring the water making the bouts of steam almost unbearably hot. I liked to pour a little at a time so you could enjoy each projection of steam and the after-effects of the lingering water in the air. I looked at Isobel through the fog and saw she looked confused.

“Don't worry about a thing, you'll learn to love hut,” I reassured her. “It's great for the pores. Think of it like a spa!”

The steam was luxurious, I felt like I was swimming in it. I surrendered to it. I dripped and sweated and felt like I'd had a bucket of water poured over me and out of me. Jack was smiling beside me, sliding his wet hair back with his hand, his eyes closed. Isobel wasn't saying anything; she just looked at me wide-eyed.

After a while the rocks cooled, calming down; the water no longer sizzled much when it hit them. Wisps of steam lingered in the foggy hut, which we enjoyed until the last possible moment. You could understand how First Nations people used sweat lodges as sacred ritual places.

When the air was mostly clear, instead of crawling out of the hut, Jack decided to break out of it. On the count of three we pulled the tarp free from the logs and were blasted with one of those amazing prairie sunsets of peachy, saffrony, orangey hues spanning the whole sky above.

We were wowed by the brightness and beauty of it. We whooped cement-cracking screams as we charged into the water. This was one of the best post-hut experiences I've ever had, in my all-time top five. Having sweated every possible toxin out of my body, I felt totally invigorated. The coldness of the water crashed with our body heat. This was living. Isobel and I even peed standing up, side by side. Jack frolicked in the surf.

Isobel went to eat what was left of the food, and Jack and I played naked Hacky Sack on the beach. I was having a ridiculously good time. I wanted to play naked Frisbee next. The vibe had subtly changed: sex was in the air. I felt desire rev me up. I didn't feel at all self-conscious with him. It was weird. I knew I didn't have a magazine body. My legs weren't very long. Even with Mount Vesuvius reddening the left side of my face, I loved myself.

After Hacky-Sacking, we jumped back in the lake to clean off the sweat. It was colder now. I worried a bit about bloodsuckers. I could see that Isobel had gone to bed inside the tent. We came back and sat in front of the fire. Jack took my hand and caressed it. He was sitting on a log.

“You're gorgeous, girl. I don't know what you're thinking, but I'd . . .”

“Me too. Let's have another drink.” I grabbed the whisky and chugged some down. Jack had a big gulp too.

I straddled him.

He kissed my neck hungrily. I could've cried, it felt so good. He kept at it for ages until I was pretty wound up. His other hand stroked my hair. Our chests pressed together were warm. My wet hair dripped down my back, but the fire's flames and our skin on skin were heating me.

I wasn't going to fall in love with this guy. This was just for the wonderful moment. He moaned when I reached down and cupped his balls. “That's some fine Hacky action you got down there, we could . . .”

“Oh, Annie. Wow. Can I just?”

“I'd like that a lot . . .”

He grabbed a condom out of his knapsack, ripped it open with his teeth, rolled it on, and then slipped inside me. I rocked back and forth, feeling us as one fluid rhythm. With my face buried in his hair that smelled wonderfully like damp cedar, we moved like that for a sweet while until the fever picked up. He grabbed my ass and bit down lightly on my right nipple, not too hard, not too soft. I started coming and coming and freefalling off a cliff. Inside I yelled,
HALLELUJAH
!!!

His grasp tightened as his orgasm thundered in just behind mine. He shook. He shook some more. He let out a gleeful “Yeeeeeeseeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!” as we rolled off the tree stump into the sand behind.

When we were done panting, I grabbed his hand and hoisted him up to go for a final skinny dip. Then we lay in each other's arms in our unibag and slept peacefully.

We dropped off Jack in a small Saskatchewan town where he was visiting a pal of his (he was couch-surfing for the summer). He gave us some sagebrush from inside his backpack to hang from the rear-view mirror, telling us to throw away those chemical air fresheners. I waved goodbye and revelled in flashbacks of the night before. He had done me good, and I felt well and truly detoxed.

Later that day we stopped at a hardware store to get supplies for the car, some duct tape for the left wing mirror and some Krazy Glue for the gear stick top thingy that had popped off. We found a ToolMart in a strip mall called Damascus. I walked in and almost immediately felt uncomfortable. Fluorescent lighting. Endless aisles of useless stuff. How would we ever find anything? It was dizzying. Isobel hunted for a helper person, but it seemed like they were all on a break. There was one guy with a headset on and a queue of five agro-looking tool shoppers. So we combed the aisles. I wanted to get out of there quickly. I wanted to find our tools and get the hell out. They were playing something almost recognizable on the overhead speakers.

The old familiar dizzy feeling was coming for me. Isobel stalked off like a flamingo, in a new walk she was working on. She was going to find the duct tape, and I was in charge of looking for Krazy Glue.

This one came out of nowhere.

The usual shit happened:

My heart pounded. My neck sweated.

My hearing amplified.

The loudspeakers were playing the Cowboy Junkies.

I fell to the ground, almost on purpose.

Is this it?

Is this me, mad? Am I foaming? Are they going to take me away to the loony bin?

I finally just gave up.

I huddled into fetal.

There was nobody in my aisle. The floor was lino, fake wood colour. I think it must have been cleaned that morning; it smelt lemony in a hideously antiseptic way. I was oddly alert, watching all of my movements. My mind had separated from my body. I couldn't order it to do anything, it just wanted to lie still in the fetal position.

I was in a zone. Time had stopped. I knew I was prostrate on the floor of a ToolMart. There were bound to be ramifications.

The fluorescent light pulsed in time with my boil. The product names orbed around me.
UFIXIT, SQUEAK-NO-MORE, SMALL HEAD, DIBBITS
 . . . They fed into a river of my worst fears.

I was insane.

I was too embarrassed to shout for help. Time was going by though. I was less sure I wanted to be found. I was surprised I could be lying on the ground in a public place and nobody would notice. When would Isobel come get me? Would the store staff find me first?

I was having a nervous breakdown. Wasn't someone going to notice?

What is a nervous breakdown anyway? For a moment I forgot myself and listened to the Cowboy Junkies's wonderfully husky “Sweet Jane.”

My memory rewound to lying on my back as a small child, being dragged around the neighbourhood on a sled looking up at the sundogs, bewildered by the crystallized snow flakes, prisms falling from the sky. I was wearing a full body ski suit, rainbow-coloured. I had warm mittens that my mom had attached to a string and sewn into my sleeves so I wouldn't ever lose them. I wore four pairs of socks and sheepskin wool boots. I had on full-body long johns and a turtleneck. The only part of me that was exposed were my two cheeks. My nostril hairs felt crunchy from the freezing weather. The sky was blue. The sound of the plastic sled squeaking along the pavements over smooth, hardened snow. The feeling of bumps underneath my back. Mom was taking me to the
IGA
for fun and groceries. I loved being carted around on my back seeing underneath people's cars. Dogs looked huge and I liked to look at trees' feet.

Then when I grew up and met Sullivan, I told him about my happy sled memories. Our first winter together he showed up outside my apartment with a big wooden sled and he took me to the park. It was nine o'clock and all the lessons and hockey matches were long over. We had the rink to ourselves. He put on his skates, took a massive candle out of his backpack, and skated to the middle of the lake and put it there and lit it. He had a mini-boombox too. He put on “Sweet Jane” and skated back to me. I lay flat on the sled that fit me perfectly. It was a mild night, probably around minus ten. Cold but not fuckfuckfuckfuck cold. Before we'd gone out he made me put on two pairs of long johns and two pairs of socks. We had toques and gloves, we were well geared up. He had a rope attached to the sled that he tied around his waist. He skated around and around the rink and that big candle. I stared at the stars, listened to his breathing.