Order of Good Cheer (7 page)

History was almost by definition badly written, but even a bare-bones narrative his imagination could fill in. He would read it was three hundred rifles against three thousand Zulu spears, feel the bureaucracy in this statement and try to attach flesh and blood to both rifles and spears, and know that some on both sides were insanely brave and others cowardly and others uncertain dreamers, like him. He knew what they dreamed about — women, home, land — and imagined what woman, what piece of land. He'd Google a picture of copra. He'd investigate food and imagine the smells, the tastes, and decide that hyena tasted like a cross between cat and dog, plus the sourness of a scavenger. He would read about tropical heat and imagine the weight and feel of cloth on the skin. Hearing wind on the tin, seeing that white ice had sprung an instant pattern on the glass, he would imagine what life was like when you were always shirtless and eagerly perspiring.

Up there on the annex, where he'd smuggled a good floor lamp so he could shut off the loud overhead fluorescence, he had all-night business with the histories of Asia, and of course the Hellenistic era, and the Roman, and Spanish Latin American,
and Danish, and the weirdly opaque Finnish. He wouldn't so much choose a country as he would find himself led off by a Portuguese explorer or travel the Silk Route and find himself somewhere new. He had a brief and intense time in Australia, turning to it not because of England's entertaining dump of misfits but rather because he read that the Aborigines had just been genetically traced to a region — a village, actually — in India. Prehistory was an almost guilty pleasure, since so much came off like hopeful declarations from the murk. You couldn't help but love it that a legitimate branch of Neanderthal studies had proposed partly from jaw structure that, since speech looked unlikely, they may well have communed with a crude telepathy, using an enlarged peneal under that famous big brow of theirs.

More recently, meandering his way closer to home, he turned to England and France and, only now, Canada. He read the main stuff (some of it vaguely familiar from high school) and then a coast-to-coast roll of greatest historical hits, based not on chronology but more on regional spectacle, moving from the Newfoundland Beothuks to the Halifax Explosion, to Confederation in P.E.I., to Wolfe and Montcalm duking it out in Quebec, to the War of 1812 (really just an Ontario thing but much touted in these anti-American days), to Louis Riel, to the tunnels of Moose Jaw, to various Hudson's Bay Company shenanigans, to way out west and Sir Alexander Mackenzie (who on the race overland beat by several years the more celebrated and secretly homosexual Lewis and Clark), to the Last Spike, the spate of gold rushes, and an island lighthouse not far from here that was shelled by a sub in the Second World War.

In any case Andy's work was reading, and reading was his work. Up in the shack he'd bolted a bookshelf into the tin, permanent and in full view of foremen. His workbag often sagged heavy with books. Only new guys might joke about him. To the
rest he was just Andy Winslow, which meant books, just like Ralph Palmateer meant seven kids, Larry Simon meant vintage cars, and Patti in accounting meant a prosthetic right leg no one had any clue about.

Still, to be as regular a guy as possible, Andy had had to watch himself. Being asked a question and knowing the answer was one thing. Being the butt of a let's-test-Winslow joke was okay too. But socially there was a fine line between being their pet polymath and a shunned know-it-all, and the only way to avoid being the latter was to know when to put a cork in it. For instance, if the boys were onto politics, if they were huddled outside in a circle and talk turned to,
Why the fuck doesn't Quebec just separate and au revoir, assholes
? he had to learn that, even though now was
precisely
the time to mention various acts signed in 1756 that guaranteed the French certain rights, it was also very much not the time. Given the mood, given that none of them remembered more than ten words of high-school French, given that they were standing outside in pitch-black drizzle at 2:30 a.m., 213 feet in the air on a silo top with no safety rail, gazing way, way east, bitter with taxes, Ottawa, and layoffs — it was clear that the purpose here was camaraderie. Not knowledge, not truth. The last thing the boys wanted was some know-it-all setting them straight. Standing in a ring of guys, hunched slightly to be more their height, Andy had quickly learned not to correct someone who'd just put out there that all sharks must keep swimming or die, or that more guys had died in Iraq than in Vietnam, or that Greenland was owned by Iceland. He learned that you don't correct a machinist who's just said that copper is the best conductor of electricity (actually it's silver, but expensive to use). He knew you don't inform parents about parenting (especially as to immunization, circumcision, or breastfeeding). Same with race, health food, the biology of addiction, or — especially — you never tell a guy anything about his car.

The idea here was to get through a shift and maybe even have an okay time, and Andy understood that. The goal wasn't truth, it was wit, wit being the more important of the two and more
true
, in fact, than truth. Wit was here and now, vital and provable — the evidence was the laughter — while truth was none of those things. Especially when it was just more bad news. What was more sustaining, wit or truth, to a circle of guys standing in the cold, wondering when layoffs were coming, and would head office wait till after Christmas this year?

It was easy for Andy to keep a cork in it. He wasn't proud of his knowledge. He knew that most was useless and a little was a dangerous thing. He also knew that, since he never learned a subject to its cutting edge, he was an expert in nothing. Except, maybe, the physical act of reading. Which he did to get through a shift. Which he did — he knew Laura would inform him before too long — to escape.

In any case Andy knew he'd been invited to Drew's father's banquet for the Chinese Wheat Women not to be a token worker but because he knew lots of stuff and could add to any conversation, if asked. Actually he had questions of his own for them. First, their take on the rehabilitation of Tibet. Then he wanted to hear whether, with all this new wealth in their present Great Leap Forward, they thought the Dancing Monkey might make a comeback.

ANDY CAME TO
at his mother's door, catching himself peering in the top of the door's three teardrop-shaped windows. He could not remember walking the last five or six blocks.

He paused before knocking. There were the four of them at the game table, intent on what looked like Sorry. There was Mrs. Schultz, Laura's mom, holding a game card close to her face,
reading it with her one eye, still wearing the ugly flesh-coloured patch stuck on with adhesive. The three other women waited while she slowly mouthed the words, then just as slowly — passive-aggressively it looked like to Andy — moved her piece on the board.

He never knew whether to knock or ring the bell, wondering if it might affect how much they were startled. That sudden bustle and tizzy, four white-haired seniors in too much dither because someone was at their door. And it wasn't like they didn't know who, Wednesday being Andy's night. They'd probably been talking about him for the last hour, everything from socks to haircut, and Andy would be their focus for as long as he stayed. There would be no talk of Laura's coming, though. Neither his mother nor Laura's cared for the subject. One knew he was too good for her and the other knew he wasn't.

He rang the bell and watched three ladies check hair and scrape chairs. Only his mother kept her dither hidden. She sat calmly. Here was her dutiful son. She looked proud, if not smug. She lifted what looked to be an empty teacup and, regal, not glancing up, she appeared to ask the air that her cup be filled. She was ignored.

Sprightly Doris ran on tiptoes to open the door for him.

“Oh, look who it is,” she exclaimed to the room.

“Who is it?” asked Mrs. Schultz, sincerely forgetful.

“Is that you, Andy?” asked Rita, still in her chair but trying painfully to turn all the way around.

“Hello, dear,” said his mother, not looking at him. Hanging his coat, Andy made his usual pre-emptive excuses for not staying long. He pulled up a chair to join in the game. The house smelled of onions, plus something worse, something turned. But not a dirty dish or misplaced pencil could be seen. On the counter the teapot in its cozy had been placed at perfect
right angles to the cupboard. Holding nothing, the fridge door magnets — apple, orange, peach, and pineapple—were lined up on a nifty diagonal.

“The McGills,” said his mother, “phoned me and said the erosion was actually very noticeable. That actually it looked to them that you'd lost quite a
bit
of yard.” A faint aggression to her cheer suggested it had been somehow his fault, some failure of diligence to protect the family homestead. But surely he was imagining this.

“Well, maybe. Maybe ten feet, like I said. But just in one corner.” When first telling her, to protect her he'd deliberately low-balled his description of the damage.

“Well, that can't be good. Surely it can be fixed?”

“I don't think we'll get the land back, but I'm looking into ways of not losing any more. You know, rocks barged in, or a cement wall.”

“That'll be expensive, dear.”

“I'm looking into it.”

Rita tossed in, he thought for his benefit, “That was really quite a storm.”

“It sure was,” he agreed. The thing is, it hadn't been that big a storm at all and this was the worrisome part, but not something to bring up at the moment.

“Any more news?” Andy nodded at the tv, an immense flat screen over in the corner. It was always on. Tonight, two talking heads, pictures of what might be Afghanistan in the background, the sound turned off.

“Nothing yet,” said Rita. She had the remote at the ready beside her ashtray. “They've ruled out a chemical spill. They're talking about a ‘dead zone.' Something about oxygen.”

“It's so sad,” offered Doris. “Those south winds are just...” She let it trail off, looking unsure what came next.

“Are you feeling all right, dear?” his mother asked. Andy knew she'd been staring.

“I'm fine. I just need some —”

“You look awful. Are you eating?”

“Is this the oil spill again?” asked Mrs. Schultz.

“Marie, there was no oil spill,” said Rita, a little harshly, perhaps repeating herself. “It's the mystery of the dead fish.”

Doris said to Andy, “There were some very, very good pictures of the bears near Port Edward coming down and scooping fish up!”

“Teddy bears' picnic,” said Rita. “You've played Sorry before, Andy, isn't that right?”

“A couple times now.”

“Then you know what happens if you kill
me.”

Of his mother's three housemates, Andy liked Rita best. She behaved most like a friend, like a contemporary. She could relax, meet his eye, and actually be funny. It was sad how fat she was, and worrisome that she smoked as much as she did. Laura's mother he liked the least, first because Mrs. Schultz was a hard piece of work and second because she'd never liked him either. Marie Schultz was the reason Sorry had replaced bridge as the house game — a shift they would never recover from, since bridge was why the foursome had moved in together in the first place. It'd been about a year now since she lost the short-term capacity for bidding and trump and partner's signals. Then there was the habitually speedy Doris, who tried to please everyone and only say the right thing. Andy suspected that the real Doris, if one existed, had been locked away inside for sixty years or more and no one had a clue what she was really like. As for his mother, Andy sometimes wondered how much he'd like her if he wasn't forced to love her. He tended to think not much. It was hard to get through that stilted elegance.

“I'll sit out the first one,” his mother announced. “Andy really needs something to eat. The winner can sit out the next. Unless it's Andy.”

Andy explained that he was full, he just needed to catch up on some sleep, but his mother ignored him. He didn't like the look of that macaroni salad she was dishing out. He yawned then, some delayed proof of his poor sleep, and both Doris and then Mrs. Schultz yawned in response. Something in this made him suddenly antsy, desperate to be away from this place.

The Sorry board allowed only four players, so his mother's sacrifice was necessary, the shared attitude being that Andy had come over to play Sorry and could hardly wait. That he might just want to sit and talk was unheard of. This was a house of games. The “puzzle table” over in the corner held its ongoing jigsaw, with a lone chair in front of it, where one might choose to spend a quiet half-hour. On tv,
Wheel of Fortune
and
Jeopardy
were watched as a group, as was
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
, until it changed hosts.

“What shift are you on?” his mother asked musically, smiling. While not playing, she would officially initiate conversation. She knew full well what shift he was on.

“Days.” He had to stop himself from standing. Also, he'd figured out his restlessness. Leaving wouldn't help, he'd be restless anywhere. Leaving wouldn't make Laura come sooner.

“And what are you reading, dear?”

Andy didn't have the energy to get into the Canadian history. Plus it was something someone might know about and a discussion might ensue. So he mentioned the Nijinsky biography. He told them what a colourful mess the man was.

And after the briefest pause, his mother offered, “All are not merry who dance lightly.”

Her proverbs, maxims, chestnuts. Sometimes he suspected her of having one ready for him every week, but that just couldn't be, because she typically had one at hand for any topic, as she did today. They were irritating, not because they were appropriate, or wise, as any saying that has stood the test of time tends to be. Her proverb, a month ago, to describe Drew's latest scrape with the authorities at work —“Mettle is dangerous in a blind horse”— had felt like a new glimpse of his lifelong friend's brand of stubbornness. It was her delivery that was irritating. Or that she said them at all.