Sweeter Life (23 page)

Cyrus snorted dismissively. “Sounds like another bullshit story Sam Loach dreamed up.”

“Well, Sam’s involved all right, but it wasn’t his idea by a long shot. They signed him up just like they signed Benny Driscoll and most of the other farmers out here.”

“They’re selling out?”

“Not selling, no. They signed a contract. This company pays a flat fee to drill test holes. If they don’t find oil, that’s the end of it; the farmers are all up a few hundred dollars and no sweat. If they do, then Sam and Benny sell the oil rights for so much a barrel. You better believe half the folks out here are dreaming in dollar signs these days.”

When Cyrus stepped from the car at Orchard Knoll, Blackie was all frantic, poor fella, nuzzling and whining. Ruby kept turning Cyrus around, kissing his cheeks, touching his hair and hands. “I have
prayed
for this day,” she said more than once. With Eura, however, both Ruby and Clarence were overly polite, as though they were saving all their warmth for Cyrus.

For dinner, Ruby had cooked his favourites: cornflake chicken, coleslaw and mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy. As the evening progressed, and as they found out more about Eura—a co-worker, that’s all, a friend—their uneasiness with her faded away. Clarence, in particular, became most attentive. Cyrus and Isabel exchanged glances more than once as they watched him pour on the charm.

After dinner they sat in the living room with tea and
kuchen
. Blackie lay at Cyrus’s feet. Clarence said, “Ever since you’ve been gone, you know, Ruby has found herself a new little friend. I hardly see her anymore.”

Ruby rolled her eyes. “It’s nothing of the sort. I’ve just had a few visits with that nice Janice Young. She’s even come to church with me.”

Cyrus laughed out loud at the idea of Janice in church. “How is she?”

“Oh,” Ruby said, “very well, I think. She’s excited about some new idea of hers. Won’t tell me what it is exactly.” Then she sighed deeply and said, “You’ll never know how much you scared the dickens out of her, out of all of us, Cyrus, running off that way.”

“I never intended to leave so soon. It just sort of happened.”

Clarence snorted and said, “Your aunt here was having conniptions when they found that body out by the pump. I told her you could look after yourself, but she wouldn’t listen.”

“What was
that
about?” Cyrus asked. “They ever solve the mystery?”

Ruby sat forward on her seat. “No, they did not. And imagine, they’re pretty darn sure this poor fellow was a musician. I would have had kittens if I had known that at the time.”

“They don’t know for certain,” Isabel countered. “That’s just a suggestion from the autopsy.”

“A bass player, wasn’t that the idea?” Clarence asked. “Had to do with the calluses on his fingers.” He looked at Cyrus. “That sound right?”

“Makes sense. There’d be the regular calluses on his left hand. And most bass players don’t use a pick. I know Seth used to get huge blisters on the index and middle finger of his right hand.”

“That’s right!” Ruby exclaimed. “That’s just what they said last week in the
Gazette.”
She walked over to the wicker basket that held their newspapers and rifled through them a moment. “Here,” she said, pointing to the article, “just like you described it.”

What caught Cyrus’s eye was the photo of the dead man—just a kid, really—and underneath it, the caption: Do You Know Him? Cyrus handed the paper to Eura and was about to change the subject when he noticed her take a deep breath and quickly fold the paper in half. Her hand trembled slightly when she gave it back to him. And in that moment the subtle clues and suggestions of the past few months came together, and he knew it was this mystery man, not fate, that had brought Ronnie all the way to Wilbury.

AFTER IZZY WENT TO BED
, Cyrus waited an hour before he slipped off the sofa and tiptoed to the spare room. He knew Eura was awake. He leaned closer to her in the dark and said, “It was him, wasn’t it, the bass player before me.”

She rolled over to face the wall. “You should go to sleep.”

“I can’t. I keep thinking maybe we should call the police.”

She sighed deeply and turned back to him. “Do not think too much about this. It is not for you. I will handle Mr. Ronnie Conger.”

Then she lifted the edge of the covers for him and he nuzzled closer. When he tried to kiss her, she turned him around so his backside nestled against her and she could press her face between his shoulder blades. When
he tried to reach behind to stroke her leg, she grabbed his hand and tucked it against his chest. “Be thankful,” she whispered. “It has been a good day.”

He was tempted to try again to embrace her, but he thought better of it. He was happy enough to be in her bed and to have her arms around him.

JANICE HAD TAKEN OFF
her Sunday skirt and blouse and had just pulled on jeans and a T-shirt when Cyrus rang the doorbell. When she saw who it was, she threw open the door and ran straight into his arms. “You bastard,” she said, squeezing him with all her might. “You prick.” Then she untangled herself and dragged him toward the den, half-running, half-skipping, all the while keeping up her tirade. “You prick, you bastard.” She threw him onto the sofa and straddled him, gazing excitedly into his face.

He touched her cheek and fought back the lump in his throat, completely undone by the sight of her. “You’re looking good, Janice.”

“Fuck you, Owen. Fuck you. How could you just disappear like that? You’re such a prick. And I’ve got so much to tell you.”

He laughed, because her energy was irresistible. And he said, “Well I hear you’ve been going to church with Ruby. What’s
that
all about?”

She rocked her head from side to side. “I’ve been on such a trip this past while, you wouldn’t believe. Me and Ruby, every week at St. Mike’s. Can you believe it? I’ve been reborn.” A troubled look flickered across his face, and she hugged him once again. “Not like you’re thinking, you big dope. But everything’s changed. Come on, I’ll show you.”

She was on her feet again and dragging him upstairs to her room. The walls were covered with drawings and paintings: pencil, pen and ink, charcoal, acrylic, watercolour, gouache, tempera. There were plaster moulds and sculptures, metal pieces welded together to make goofy-looking statues, mixed-media jumbles made of wood, cloth, bits of coloured plastic and scraps cut out of photographs.

Cyrus held his hands atop his head like a prisoner of war and said, “What is this?”

She stood behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “This,” she said, “is my future.”

“Since when? You hated art, remember?”

“Yeah, well, surprise, what I hated was Velma Fleck’s stupid ideas about art. Five years, Cyrus, five years and the only thing she taught us was to draw what you see. If she said it once, she said it a thousand times. ‘People, people, people: draw what’s there!’ And then it hit me that she was all wrong. Art isn’t drawing what’s there, it’s drawing what’s
not
there. And when I figured that out, I knew it’s what I completely had to do.”

She circled him until they were standing cheek to cheek. “Speaking of what’s needed,” she said. She began to undo his jeans.

He swallowed hard. “Look, hold on.” He led her to the bed and sat beside her, taking her hands so he could keep them under control. “I came back with a friend, and we were planning to be here a few days, but something’s come up. We’re leaving soon.” He shrugged. “I couldn’t go without at least seeing you …”

“Oh. Well. Sure. Now you know I’m fine, right? Now you can just piss off again.”

“Janice, don’t be mad.”

“I’m not mad. Besides, I’ll be gone soon anyway. I’ve applied to the Ontario College of Art. Come September I’ll be in Toronto.” She took his hand, kissed the palm and said, “What about you, Cyrus? How’s the gig?”

He had practised countless times the little spiel he planned to give her, about the adventure, the education, the electricity of life on the road, but his words got tangled in his discomfort. He shrugged and said, “I think I’m in over my head, but I’m learning tons and getting paid and travelling. It’s mind-blowing, really. You wouldn’t believe these people.” Then, unable to resist any longer, he leaned forward and kissed her, pulling her bottom lip into his mouth. “Don’t hate me,” he said.

She pushed him back and shook her head. “What I hate is not talking to you. No one understands, Cy. They think I’m screwing up my life.”

He wasn’t exactly sure
he
understood, either, except her sense of frustration. He wrapped his arms around her and rocked her side to side. “I’m on the road all the time, kind of unreachable. But I’ll try to stay in touch. And wherever you end up, tell Ruby your address and phone number. I’ll do the same, if I ever get settled. That way we can always track each other down.”

He kissed her one more time and got to his feet. “An artist,” he said,
warming to the idea.

She watched him walk to the door and was tempted to run after him. Instead she fell back and closed her eyes, remembering a sunny autumn day in grade nine, the two of them walking along the railroad tracks after school and revealing secrets that made them special. She was doing most of the talking, telling him how much she admired her dad, what a great guy he was. And then she realized what a stupid thing that was to say to someone without a father.

At first Cyrus didn’t reply. He picked up a cinder and heaved it at a hydro pole. “My uncle’s pretty great, too,” he said, unable to meet her gaze. “Clarence bought me a guitar. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s pretty cool. Electric and everything. I pick it up sometimes and don’t even play a note. I just hold it, you know? I just hold it.”

He looked up at her, half expecting her to mock him. Instead she smiled, and he smiled back. They each took a step forward. And another. She lifted her chin. He lowered his head. Their first kiss.

CYRUS AND EURA DROVE
straight to Buffalo, the American plates on the Ford all the passport they needed to cross the border. They got to the hotel late in the afternoon and walked directly to Ronnie’s room.

“Ah, my wandering friends,” he said when he opened the door to them. “I had rather expected you would stay away a good deal longer, visit a few scenic locales.”

“We did,” Cyrus said, pushing into the room. Eura followed him and they sat together on the small brown sofa. “We went to Wilbury.”

“But of course, the home ground. Your family is well?”

“Just great. And guess whose picture we saw?”

Without waiting for a response, Eura pulled the
Wilbury Gazette
from her bag and handed it over.

Ronnie studied the picture a long while. Then he sighed and said, “Yes, now I see. You have cut short your vacation because you are looking for an explanation. You want to know how this all came about. You want to look into my eyes for signs of guilt. Ideally you want me to tell you a story that will allow you to sleep with a clear conscience.”

“The truth maybe is more what we were thinking,” Eura replied.

Ronnie sat on the edge of the coffee table, his head bowed, his hands clasped. “The truth is a slippery thing. Let me tell you what I know.” He seemed relieved, as though he had been longing to speak of this matter.

“When I first met Cal,” he said to Eura, “he was in much worse shape than even you, my dear, so deeply broken I never would have chosen him had I known. But in his short time with us, he did make great strides. I saw you and the others take him under your wing, and for that I cannot thank you enough. We did more for that boy than anyone had ever done before. He told me so himself, not in so many words, of course—he was not much for sharing vulnerabilities—but in little ways.”

He looked out the window then, weariness lining his face. “Twice in our short time together I found him unconscious in his bed, an overdose. It was frightful, I can tell you, to see him lying there like a corpse, that beautiful boy. Both times I dragged him into a tub of ice water. I slapped his face and pinched his arms and legs. And both times, you know, his eyelids flickered, and I was able to pull him onto the floor and towel him dry. Then I walked him up and down the room, plying him with room-service coffee and chocolate bars until finally—and I will remember this all my life—he struggled out of my grasp, backed up a few steps and blew me a kiss, like a Hollywood starlet saying farewell to her fans.”

Ronnie got to his feet, jammed his hands into his pockets and began to pace the room. “I curse myself for not being able to save him a third time, but for a few blessed months, we gave him music. Surely you remember his face onstage. I could weep right here just thinking of it. Such pure joy and surprise. No matter that he was hopeless on his instrument, no matter what hell he put me through each day, I was repaid each night by that face. Was it not spectacular, my dear?”

Eura nodded soberly. When she started to speak, he stopped her by holding up his hand. “No one knew where he was from,” he continued, “or if Cal was his real name. But one thing I know, he deserved better than to die in some second-rate hotel on the outskirts of Ironville. So I asked a few of the lads to help me lift him gently into my car, and I drove until sunrise and lo and behold I was in a beautiful place, with fresh breezes off the lake, and
fruit trees and big black fields. I sat him up against a building so that he could look across to a distant horizon. I placed all his favourite things around him and bid him farewell. How could that be wrong? How could any of that be wrong? Tell me one thing you would have me change.”

“Maybe truth is slippery,” Eura said, “but so is poetry. What do you think, Ronnie, that it would matter to Cal where the police found his body? But it would matter to you and Jim.”

“My dear girl, be reasonable.” He held his hands out like a minister urging his congregation to put their trust in the Lord. “Of course it matters to Jim. That is precisely the point I have been trying to make. And it matters to me and you and Cyrus here. It matters to Sonny and Tony and all the people we touch. There is not one of us who came untroubled into the fold. I don’t know how or why it has happened this way, but we are, almost in spite of ourselves, a healing machine. So yes, there was another motive. What we have here is something larger than all of us, something that I, for one, do not understand. But I know one thing: our being here, our journey from town to town, makes the world a slightly better place and makes our lives more respectable. Who is willing to tamper with something like that for the sake of formalities?”