For Sure (43 page)

“An a great big tank you to you yerself, Chico, fer acceptin' me as yer new dad. I don't know how to explain it, but it's as doh I already knowed you afore I knew you. An' I promise dat I'll be doin' everyting I can so dat you have a good life.”

Chico particularly liked this last part, and was eager to join in:

“Alright, I'll be wanting to say someting too.”

on the wooden chair

apple core sweats in the sun

pips will spring in time

Ludmilla sat down with her cereal bowl while her husband displayed his purchases.

“Looks fine to me.”

“There were all kinds. I took the ones for trout.”

Ludmilla crunched on her cereals, and listened to Le Grand Étienne's report.

“They're cork. These reels have only two ball bearings. The more expensive ones had eight.”

Zablonski poured himself a coffee.

“Some had light-action reels, others medium. Some are made of graphite, more sensitive, less sensitive . . . a real circus!”

And then, adding sugar to his coffee:

“They even sell tiny modules called echo sounders that attach to the rod and tell you where the fish are! Can you imagine?!”

!

“You think they'll be happy?”

Ludmilla was sure they would.

Étienne will forever be marked by the moving houses of Caraquet.

“Well, how 'bout Tide den, would Tide be poison too?”

“Holy geez, Étienne! Now yer startin' to worry me!”

But Étienne really wanted to know:

“Like, say Granny was to put de Tide in 'er strawberry pie instead o' sugar, would dat kill de whole family?”

“Well, I suppose which ever one o' us took de first bite would right away know de taste was bad, an' would spit it out or choke on it or some such ting, an' den de rest of us would hold off eatin' it. Den de police would come in to figure out wot happened, and den most likely Granny'd be hauled off to de prison, if dey could prove dat she was weary of us all and really wanted to poison de whole lot of us.”

Étienne had not imagined the story could end in prison.

“But, how come de police knowed 'twas Granny?”

“Knew. We say knew.”

. . .

“I don't know, do I. Might be de neighbours heard de screamin' or someting like, an' dey dialled 9-1-1.”

To arrive at a small or grand slam contract, the players must first bid in the natural manner until one of the two partners gets to a bid of four no trump. The other partner then bids five clubs if he has no aces, five diamonds if he has one, five hearts if he has two, or five spades if he has three aces. The bidder can then ask for kings in the same manner. The partner will respond with a bid of six clubs if he has no kings, six diamonds if he has a single king, six hearts if he has two, and six spades if he has three kings. Language is rife with codes.

The strawberry picking was in full swing.

“Dad, is der a
jail
for kids?”

Étienne had used the English word
jail
instead of the French
prison
.

“
Prison
. Yer not allowed to say
jail
. But, dat's alright, I won't tell your mudder.”

“Well, you said
ender up
in prison.”

“I said dat? I never even noticed.”

Terry was playing innocent, but he was conscious that he'd been increaingly lapsing into Chiac lately.

“I won't tell Mum neider.”

To account for.

“No, dey doesn't really have prisons fer kids. If ever a child was to do someting terrible wrong, dey'd figure it was on account of de parents didn't bring 'im up proper. An den dey sends de child to a special kind o' school where he'd be learnin' wot de parents failed to teach 'im.”

Le Petit Étienne was paying close attention.

“Only dose schools're a whole lot stricter dan de schools we got 'round 'ere. Most times you 'ave to stay der a couple o' years. You sleep der an' everyting.”

Terry, thinking he would like to be inside Étienne's head to know what the boy was thinking, struggled to say more:

“Like, let's say you decide to put some of dat Tide in de sugar bowl, an' I get up one mornin' not knowing, an' I pour a whole lot of it in me Cheerios, so den I end up havin' to go to de hospital . . . Most likely, dey'll try to figure why you'd be wantin' to do me harm. Could be on account of I don't treat you right, or maybe der's someting inside you dat needs to hurt people, or could be you don't know de difference betwixt right an' wrong.”

Le Petit Étienne had never imagined that the police made such fine distinctions.

“Chances are dey'll decide it wasn't really yer fault, on account of it's awful rare dat a child by himself is really bad. Almost always it's udder people dat made 'im de way ee is.”

For a moment Étienne continued to pick strawberries, seemed satisfied.

“An' if it turned out dat I was really bad, all by meself inside me, what would happen den?”

Le Petit Étienne had used the word
quesse
or “what” instead of the more colloquial
quosse
or “wot,” thereby demonstrating that even he knew how to refine his language in a delicate situation.

Turn the soil over with a ploughshare, fertilize it with a manure spreader, loosen it with a crop-dusting tandem or cultivator, sow with a line seeder, reap with a mower-conditioner, ted with a rake, harvest with a baler, a combine harvester or a haywagon, and ensile with a silage blower.

Terry and his son picked in silence for a while. Only the wind in the leaves, the insects buzzing and birdsong could be heard.

“Folks dat put down de poison to kill de insects on strawberries, do dey go to prison?”

“Not yet dey don't, but people ought to make up der minds 'bout it pretty soon. De government's still testin' to be certain all dem chemicals aren't harmin' our healt . . . only a fellow's gotta ask hisself how can dey not be harmful? Alright, a wee sprayin' 'ere an' dere, might not be so bad. Only now it's got so dey're puttin' it all over everyting. On de strawberries, on de potatoes, on de broccoli, on yer furniture, on yer carpets . . . even on children's toys!”

Le Petit Étienne figured it might be the spraying of chemicals on potatoes that was really irritating his dad.

“Take de Island — we've not taken you over der yet, but won't be long afore we do — on de island, der's fields an' fields an' fields o' potatoes. Only dey's sprayin' so much chemicals on dem dat de kids, an' even de adults, are gettin' sicker an' sicker all de time. Dey can hardly breathe over der!”

Étienne thought about it.

“I can hardly breathe meself, when I'm runnin'.”

“Sure an' it's normal when yer runnin', boy. Runnin's not easy. It's way hard on de lungs an' de legs. Dat's why dey call it sport.”

A curve has been taking shape for a while now, assuming it hasn't been there all along, and it will continue to develop for a while longer, if not forever. In fact, it's not inconceivable that we are dealing here with a circle rather than a cube, but it's neither necessary nor desirable to pursue this idea any further.

Terry completed his thought:

“De ting is dat nowadays dey's puttin' such a shockin' amount of chemicals everywhere, it's a whole mess of stuff dat's goin' inside us an' dat can't do udderwise dan hurt us. Der's a terrible lot of illnesses nowadays de doctors don't know what causes dem. Ask me, it's all dem chemicals.”

. . .

It occurred to Terry he might have raised a subject that was too harsh for a child's ears.

“Sure, I don't want to put de fear in ya wid all dis talk. Only, if folks was lookin' furder dan de end o' der noses, dey wouldn't be puttin' so many o' dem chemicals all over de place. Take dis place 'ere, dey put zero chemicals an', ya see yerself, de strawberries are right fine just de same. In dose udder fields, dey's puttin' seven! Seven different chemicals!”

. . .

“Do you understand wot zero is?”

Straight shooter.

Terry and Étienne made their way to the field's overseer's stall with their containers full of strawberries.

“By de way, which one o' yer grannies were you tinkin' might be puttin' Tide in her apple pie?”

Étienne felt a sudden hot flash.

“It doesn't matter wot you say, I's just curious is all.”

Étienne loved both his grandmothers, and couldn't think what to answer.

“I bet you was tinkin' o' Granny Thibodeau.”

Étienne tried to imagine his grandmother Thibodeau doing the unthinkable. It was difficult.

“Come on den, you can tell yer dad . . .”

Étienne neither nodded nor shook his head, although he felt it would have been easier to reply with a movement of his head than with words.

“I knew it.”

Étienne wondered what it was his father knew all of a sudden.

“Don't bodder yerself about it. I'm not surprised. She's me mudder, an' I know her.”

?!

“Not dat she'd do it, mind ya. Only I do believe de tawt crossed 'er mind once or twice. Don't ferget, we were five boys in dat house. An' Spinball an' Gloose were a couple o' devils when dey's young. 'Specially Spinball.”

!

“You wouldn't tink so, eh, lookin' at 'em today?”

Today, Friday, big job. Normally Friday is not the day they choose to overwork me. I was pressed into expectorating twice 200 copies of a multi-page questionnaire on golf. I despise being worked hard on Friday after I've stood around waiting through the entire week: the habit of work is something one loses and Friday is not a good day to regain it. In short, I took my time. I began by coughing a bit, then I crumpled* several sheets before flatly refusing to continue by simply jamming. Most likely surprised to be called upon, my most subtle mechanism — i.e., my automatic sorting tray, the equivalent to what medicine used to call the humours — refused to co-operate, triggering the paper-thickness code. Then the paper stock ran out, which was clearly not my fault, and to make matters worse, the ink supply followed suit, which normally doesn't happen every week. Result: I had company almost all afternoon. At first, I laughed to myself, but I soon tired of their clumsy fiddling, and before long I longed to be alone again to rebuild my memory and thoughts.

Terry and Étienne found themselves still some distance from the small kiosk.

“Folks say dat to grow as many strawberries as dey do 'ere, a fellow's got to get inside de head of a strawberry.”

“Dad! A strawberry's got no head!”

“Wot I mean, you gotta see de world troo de eyes of a strawberry. I know, I know, a strawberry's got no eyes!”

Étienne started to laugh.

“Wot dey mean to say is dat you gotta tink de way a strawberry tinks, if a strawberry could tink. Which dey very well might do, we can't know fer sure, can we?”

. . .

“Dat's de troot! Der's dem dat say plants do tink, an' dat sometimes dey wiggle der leaves to show it.”

Hunting moose, also called American elk, is considered a sport for several reasons: the hunter only gains the right to hunt through drawing lots, the hunting season only lasts three days per year, moose rarely move about when it's windy, calling the animal too often tends to confuse it, the hunter has to spread urine near his stand to attract the bull in heat and, finally, because the hunter is required to gut and dismember the carcass.

Find the video recordings of Derrick de Kerckhove in Shippagan.

“'Ave you tawt 'bout wot yer gonna say?”

The adoption ceremony was approaching, and Zed was just a little nervous. But Chico didn't seem worried at all.

“I tink about it . . . only not all dat much.”

In fact, Chico let his thoughts on the subject come and go, because there were so many other things in his new environment that required his attention. As a result, at the ceremony:

“Terry says me dad Shawn was good in maths in school, an' I'm good in maths in school as well.”

An affectionate murmur swept through the crowd, but Chico would not be diverted.

“Now, I can't wait to find out wot I'll be good at wid Zed.”

That was all it took, warm applause followed, and Zed's adoption of Chico was official.

Tried and tested, a sport not unlike settling accounts

Exceptionally, Zablonski was the one who spoke longest.