Smoke (38 page)

“You really don't mind it?”

He turns to face her and this time cocks his head to one side.

“It's just different.”

“
I
NEED YOUR CAR,”
says Buster. “Quick, Doc John's in trouble.”

“Forget it.” Donny stands. He stares at Jelly Bean. “I'm the only one who drives it.”

“Fine. You drive.”

“But my mom's bringing my sister for the parade. It should be starting soon.”

“Then hand over the keys, Don. This is the last time I'm going to ask nice.”

Donny swats the air. “I'll be right back. This wasn't part of our plan though.” He marches off towards the car just as Ivan is getting ready to test a firecracker he stole from a pile on the back of Walter Johnson's truck. Ivan stands in the woods near the entrance to the park, lights one end, hears it sizzle alive and tosses it up into the air, over the river.

Jelly Bean steps in front of Buster, her breath hot on his face.

“Take me with you.”

“Out of my way.”

“C'mon, let me help.”

He ducks around her. She blocks him.

“Are you flipped? There's no time for goofing around.”

“Don't you at least want to kiss me? The real me.” She moves closer. Her firm breasts press up against his bony chest. He stares at her straight dark hair and her blue eyes, which appear bigger now. “I know you want to.” She closes her eyes and lifts her face, and he can't help but lean down, closer, closer. He kisses her briskly—to once more feel his skin alive, seamless, and it's in this split second that he knows he needs her.

“Okay,” he says, taking her by the hand and running with her up the road as a firecracker explodes nearby. “Let's find Doc John.”

W
HILE THE TWO OF THEM
hurry towards Donny's car, Hazel discovers an unopened telegram from the United States that has slipped between the candy jar and the cash register on the counter. It's dated yesterday. Walter must have forgotten about it. Hazel rushes to open it. “Not coming,” the note reads. “Sincere apology. Barbara Ann Scott.” Hazel tosses the paper across the counter and storms out of the store, and as she goes she knocks over the doll. It merely teeters at first, ever so slightly off balance, but then it tips completely over the edge and tumbles straight down to the floor where it lands headfirst. The doll's face cracks open, splits in two parts. Both eyeballs come loose, roll to different areas on the floor and stop, pupils upright. Eyes finally uncrossed.

B
USTER SLIDES INTO THE PASSENGER SIDE
of Donny's car after Jelly Bean. “Quick,” he says. “Try the Wolftrack. Hurry, Don. Drive!”

Donny turns the key in the ignition and shifts the car backwards, taking it flat out along Main Street. The village looks older. Burnished. The street buzzes with chatter. Drummers at the front of the parade practise—
thrum, thrum, thrum
—their thunderous beat matching his pulse. He drives south on Dover, passing only one vehicle. Then his car's tires lose traction on the dirt road, but he doesn't slow down. And just as they reach the curve at Ball's Falls he swerves to avoid hitting something. “Shit!” He slams on the brakes, skidding the Bel Air to an abrupt stop like a powder-blue bolt of lightning.

“It's Doc John!” Jelly Bean points to a black car with its front end crashed into the bridge. Plumes of grey and white smoke from the engine flood up towards the sky like souls escaping. The doctor is slumped over the steering wheel, his head bowed, blood painting his forehead.

Buster cranks the handle and flies out of the car and over to the old man as fast as he can. “Are you all right?” He opens the driver's-side door.

The doctor turns his head and looks at the boy through shattered lenses. Then he slumps forward as a searing pain, relentless now, twists and strangles his body.

“Here.” Buster helps him gingerly from the Olds, rolls him onto his back on the ground. “Your car's a wreck, totally creamed.” He kneels and pulls the collar of Doc John's shirt away from his neck so that he might more easily breathe.

“Ulcers,” Doc John says. Rivulets of blood drip out the corners of his mouth, seeping between his teeth. “I … I …”

“He can't breathe,” says Donny, panicking. “He must be bleeding inside.”

“Go get help. Don't just stand there. Go!”

“I'm staying here with you,” says Jelly Bean.

The doctor motions to her with his hand.

“No Judy,” he chokes. “Please. Go with Donny.”

Donny and Jelly Bean dash back to the car and once more tear out of sight, leaving a brown cloud of dust in their wake. By the time they skid to a stop in front of the bank minutes before noon the drummers are synchronized and all five Miss Tobacco Queen finalists are atop the flatbeds waving to the excited crowd, blowing meaningless airborne kisses.

I
N AN OPEN SPACE,
where families picnic on the grass, Alice is busy organizing the younger children into pairs for a three-legged race. Later this evening (and this is what she is most looking forward to), there will be an interdenominational church service held in the park. The United church choir will sing and John will play with the band.

Hazel reaches Alice in a panic. “The parade's about to begin and Barbara Ann has cancelled. What shall I do?”

“Oh, I knew something like this was bound to happen. Go and find Tom.”

Hazel nods and darts off again.

Celebrations are otherwise getting off to a good start, with Mr. Kichler supervising a baseball tournament and children squealing and splashing about in the pool. The pool floor has recently been painted turquoise and in the shallow end the image of a giant orange octopus appears to move beneath the surface of water. Sun pours down over top of the tallest trees and lights the children's glistening hair and arms and legs with beads of wet glass. Gail and Doreen Manning take turns aiming softballs at the target on the dunking tank by the river and try to soak George Walker. Isabel carries Lizzie on her hip, walking and bouncing the child on a picnic cloth. Already another child has taken root, unannounced, inside Isabel's belly.

Len Rombout confiscated the rest of the missing firecrackers after Ivan set one off. Now Ivan is idle, standing beside his sister. When he thinks no one is watching he reaches over and pinches Susan on the rear, snickering to himself. Susan swivels. There is a hurricane in her eyes. “Don't you ever touch me again!” she spits. “You've done enough already!” But someone
has
been watching and hears the exchange. Hank looks at Ivan, who is grinning loosely— a corrupt engine. Hank's stomach turns. He begins to shake, a graceless, lovesick figure in the middle of something he does not understand. He forces himself to meet Susan's eyes and in them he finds shame enough for two. She looks away, as though slapped across the face, and her bones seem to settle with the saddest of resignations. She usually has a tongue so sharp it could cut wood but she does not speak. Is anyone listening? Where is everyone when Susan Rombout needs to be heard? Hank grows feral. Every dullness in him sharpens. Every softness and impulse to nurture or tend shifts to stone. Susan has been hurt and Ivan has made the trespass. Before Hank recognizes that it is loyalty that has risen up inside he charges and is on top of Ivan,
pounding, pounding,
fist after fist. “Rotten son of a bitch!” He yells as he pummels the boy. “You're gonna get it!”

“Get off me! Get the hell off me!”

“How do you like it?” Hank bashes Ivan's nose in, feels the bone break under his knuckles. “Not such a big man now, are you?”

“He's gonna kill me. Susan, tell him to let go!”

Susan steps away without uttering a sound. She smiles at her twin brother, on his back, powerless. She will pretend, as she has for years, that nothing out of the ordinary is taking place.

W
ALTER IS CONDUCTING THE BAND
when Jelly Bean comes running and screaming, waving her hands in the air like fly swatters.

“Dad! Dad!”

One by one the band members set their instruments down. They stare at her long, dark hair.

“What's all the racket?”

“We need help.” She's out of breath and regards Donny with urgent eyes.

“Yeah,” says Donny. “There's been an accident.”

Hazel pushes through the crowd with Tom at her side. “What's going on here? Judy Beatrice Johnson, what on earth have you done to your hair?!”

Alice races over to see what the commotion is all about, and Hank and Ivan, who is hunched over holding his bloody nose, follow closely. Susan hustles to stand at Hank's side. She takes his bruised, swollen hand in her own.

“Buster was with us,” Jelly Bean says, ignoring her mother's question. “He thought something was wrong with Doc John.”

“John? Is something the matter with John?” Alice grabs hard on the girl's arm. “Is he all right, Judy? Where is he?”

“With Buster. Out at Ball's Falls. C'mon.”

Alice feels her stomach tighten into a hard commandment.
Thou shall not bear false witness
. She follows the others to the car, her feet as heavy as mud. She doesn't need to be shown anything to understand. It has happened; time has finally run out and she knows intuitively, the way she's always known, the way she knows her bible—bone to bone, blood to blood. One psalm, one verse— one unconditional love. Heaven help us now, she thinks. She scratches her right palm and begins to weep.

B
USTER UNBUTTONS THE DOCTOR'S VEST
and starts on his shirt, but Doc John reaches up and pushes his hands away. The smell of gasoline is overpowering. The doctor turns his head and beside him a puddle is forming. He lifts and drops himself onto the warm liquid and then he raises his right arm, holds it an inch from his body. “Son, in my pocket.” His voice gurgles and fades, as exposed as soggy parchment.

Buster searches in the old man's trouser pockets, retrieves his wallet and a matchbox.

“Here you go.”

“Fire,” says the doctor, barely audible.

“What?” Buster leans down, presses his ear to Doc John's mouth. He smells sour, like battery acid.

“Fire.”

“You're not making any sense, Doc. Don't worry. You're gonna be all right. Hang on. They'll be back any minute and we'll drive you to the hospital in no time.”

Doc John coughs up a big gob of brown and red mucus. Spits it out. It dribbles down the side of his face. His eyes film over like stained glass in the rain. He lifts his head and the tendons in his neck strain. “No, hear … listen … when I'm gone.”

“You're not going anywhere. You're too cagey for that. You're Solly Levine, right?”

The doctor clutches Buster's wrist, leaving red welts. He searches the boy's scars. The whole world is mapped on his face. “Yes. Yes. But the others … they mustn't know.”

“On my honour,” says Buster. “I swear. Jeez, I knew it! I knew you were Solly. At first I thought Raymond Bernstein, but that was too obvious. Tell me how you managed it. I figure you stole papers. Changed your name, that's easy enough. How you kept up the charade this long, that's what I really want to know.” Buster removes his hat and places it on Doc John's head. “Here. You're cold, boss.”

“Son?”

“Yeah.”

“You've got to help me.” The doctor reaches for his wallet, opens it and drops its contents, including all of his personal identification, at his side.

Buster is certain that the old man is delirious now. He looks around for help. None is coming. “Just relax,” he says, trying to hide the fear in his voice. “Cool it.” The doctor's eyelids quiver uncontrollably. “Hey? Hey! Hang on. Don't you die on me!”

“Everything dies,” whispers the old man. “Dying is easy.” He releases the boy's wrist and allows his head to fall back into the dirt. Buster's voice is a distant drone. An impossible breeze blows, as soothing as a woman's caress, as real as it was on the day he met Alice all those years ago.

It was the day after he'd walked across the Ambassador Bridge. The countryside sped past in a green and brown blur as the train approached the station. Fields were crawling with workers and cows and every few miles he found a fruit or corn stand on the roadside in the distance. So different it was from the world he knew back home. Irreproachable and keen.

“I'm Alice Armstrong,” the young woman said when she sat across from him. “These are my two aunts. We're on our way to Port Dover for a show at the Paradise.”

“I'm a fan of the theatre too,” he answered. “Good to meet you.” He rose to accept their hands. “I'm Dr. John Gray.” The words fell from his tongue more than rolled that first time and he immediately wondered, If you borrow something, how long before it must be returned?

Beyond his window a small glassy lake stretched miles into the distance, blue and white reflected from above until it met on the green horizon and the difference between sky and land was hard to tell. John didn't look like a man with no place to go when he turned back to face Alice. “It's peaceful.”

“Oh it's not much,” she said, as they pulled out of the station. “But it is home.”

“Got to be from somewhere.”

“Yes, I suppose that's true. Though I'm afraid Smoke's most exciting when you're coming and going. Just try and stay put your whole life.” She smiled like the sun splitting open. Warm alabaster cheeks. Healing eyes.

“I might take you up on that dare,” he said. “I might just do that very thing.”

The gas tank on the Olds is nearly empty, the doctor's jacket, shirt and pants soaked in blood and gasoline. He hears the petrol
slosh, slosh
onto the ground, inhales the metallic odour of it, feels it settle on his lips like sweet berry wine. Buster watches trembling as blood drains from the doctor's fingertips like thermometers losing their mercury. He bends over and rests his ear to the old man's chest, his own wound fervid with pain. “Hang
on
!” He glances over his shoulder frantically and tries to pull the doctor's shirt open, release the bandages.