Washika (24 page)

When he reached Rue Pierre-Lemoine, Henri could see the club from where he stood, and “La Tanière” written in white letters across the blue canvas canopy that jutted out over the sidewalk.

There were cars parked on both sides of Rue Pierre-Lemoine, up to and past the club. The cars were still wet from the rain, and bright and shiny. Those cars directly in front of the club reflected the lights that were suspended along the verandah roof. As he approached the club, Henri could hear base notes and crashing cymbals and the screaming high notes of an electric guitar. He took one of the bills his father had given him out of his wallet and put it in his pocket. He walked quickly but, as he stepped in under the canopy, a drop of water rolled off the canvas onto his head and he felt it in his hair and then, finally, cold on his scalp.

The band had just finished a song and, as he opened the door and headed down the spiral staircase, he could hear them all, laughing and talking, some shouting across the room, and that special sound that glass makes that can only be heard in a crowded bar. There was a sudden, crisp chord slapped across a guitar and a voice saying, “one, two” and the band starting on the count of “three,” loud and wild. People were on the dance floor with their arms raised, some dancing next to the bar, and the waiters held their trays above their heads going through the crowds.

There were red, blue and bright orange lights and a haze of cigarette smoke floating upwards to the low ceiling. Henri squeezed into a space at the bar, the barmaid leaned towards him and he shouted into her ear. When the young woman brought the beer, he poured it, slanting the glass like his father did. After he had drunk half the glass and sucked away the froth from his upper lip, he looked at himself in the mirror, and held up his glass; he could feel the vibrations between the glass and his fingers and thought, yes, Lavigne was right, it was an excellent band.

The beer was very cold. After the first glass, it went down smoothly and Henri was finding it difficult not to drink too fast. He smoked ready-made cigarettes from a fresh pack and peeled at the bottle label as he watched them dancing and shaking their bodies and having a good time. The girls were tanned and showing their legs each time they whirled in their light skirts, most of them barefoot on the dance floor. They wore brightly coloured cotton skirts and many of the girls had on strapless tops and often, while they were dancing, they had to pull up on the material to keep their breasts covered.

“Okay Morin, don't move!” a voice came from behind.

Henri felt a strong arm around his throat and a clenched fist pressing against the small of his back. He looked up towards the mirror, just above the rows of bottles.

“David!” Henri yelled. The fellow removed his arm and Henri turned to face him, holding out his hand. The two young men shook hands.

“Come on, slide in here,” Henri said. “There's room.”

Tall and muscular, David Greer was Henri's best friend. They had been friends all through high school and they had even tried to arrange it so that they would be attending the same university. But David had decided to study veterinary medicine. There was only one university with a college of veterinary medicine in the province that David could attend and Henri, thus far, had decided to attend the first university that would accept him, as he had no idea what he would study. They had also tried to arrange things so that they would be working together during the summer. David's father, Archibald Ulysses Greer, had taken care of that idea. David's father was district superintendent of Surveys and Estimates for the Company. Instead of being sent up to Washika with all of the other guys from the college, David was sent on the timber cruise along with a small group of university students, all two or three years older than he was. David was unhappy working on the cruise, as unhappy as he had been at home for most of his teenage life.

“So?” Henri said. “How did you make out? Mine came in the mail this week.”

“Ah yeah. And, did you do all right?”

“Seventy-nine. You?”

“Don't know. Guess I'll have to give my old lady a call one of these days.”

He had not been home. Henri had heard the others talking about it once on their way back to Washika. It was said that David Greer had not been home since his first day working on the cruise. When he came down for a weekend, he would rent a room at the hotel and wash his clothes at the laundromat on Rue St-Charles. He had not even phoned home since the beginning of the summer.

David leaned over the bar. He looked down towards the end where the girl was getting change from the cash register. She glanced his way briefly, closed the till and walked quickly to the opposite end of the bar.

“
Sacrament
I'm thirsty,” David said. “What's her name?”

“Diane,” Henri replied.

Before David had time to call out her name, the girl stood before him.

“Yes?” she said.

“Two beers,” he said.

The girl looked along the length of the bar, towards the dance floor, and finally she looked at David.

“Look,” she said. The girl was not smiling. “There are more than a dozen kinds of beer here. If you don't mind. eh?”

“Tell you what,” David smiled at the girl. She had blue-green eyes, beautiful eyes, and David leaned closer and looked directly into them. “How about if I let you decide what I should drink tonight, okay?”

“
Sacrament
!” the girl swore, softly. She nodded to a guy standing behind David, waiting to be served.

“Yes?” she said.

“Okay, okay,” David said. “Don't get pissed. Bring us two of those.” He pointed to the half-peeled label on Henri's empty bottle.

The girl left and Henri watched her as she leaned down to open the heavy refrigerator door and bring out two beers and close the door with only a slight motion of her hand.

“Short fuse on that one, eh?” David laughed.

“She's pretty busy,” Henri said.

“Yeah, I suppose. Not bad though. Give her a try?”

“No.”

The girl brought the two beers and placed fresh glasses on the bar. David paid her with a twenty and, when she returned with the change, she placed the bills in front of him, flattened with the change piled on top, without looking at him. David slid the quarters and dimes off the bills.

“Here, that's for you,
ma belle
,” he said.

“
Merci
,” she said without looking at him.

“Hey, what's the matter?” David said.

“Nothing,” she said. The girl jerked her head and the strands of coffee-brown hair bounced off her cheek. “I'm just tired. Okay?” She tossed the change into an empty beer glass on the shelf where the liquor bottles were, and left.

“They're all like that,” David said. “Ask them anything and if they don't want to talk to you, or if they don't like your face, or whatever, they're just tired. They're tired, or they have a headache, or they have to go to the can. Pisses me right off.”

Henri laughed. He punched David a short one to the shoulder.

“Good to see you, David,” he said.

“Yeah, me too.” He tilted the bottle back and drank a long time before setting it down on the bar. “That's what I needed,” he said.

“You bet.” Henri chuckled. “You're a regular rubby.”

“Nope. You know, I can take it or leave it. Like women. I enjoy them while I can but if they're not around, well, it doesn't matter one way or the other.”

“Sure Greer.”

“Yeah, well, anyway, here we are and just look at them all out there. Tonight's tonight. See what happens and worry about it in the morning.”

David was tall and, standing straight at the bar, his blond, wavy hair almost touched the plastic canopy that ran the full length of the bar. He drained the bottle and brought it down hard on the bar.

“Hey smiley!” he yelled towards the barmaid who was punching keys on the cash register. “Two more here.”

When the girl had brought the beer, Henri brushed David's money aside and paid her. When she returned with the change, Henri tipped her generously and she smiled at him and said thank you.

“Now I understand,” David said. “It's the silent types that she's after. I might have known you weren't hanging around here for nothing.”

Henri laughed and tilted his glass, glancing sideways at the girl. She was talking to one of the waiters and the way they looked at each other as they spoke, him mopping his tray over and over again and looking straight into her eyes, Henri knew better. Silent or not, he was no match for the waiter and David had certainly been joking, or he had not seen how the girl's face changed when she was with her waiter. When there was a lull in business, she would lean against the bar and talk to him, looking into his eyes with their hands touching and only the bar between them.

“Well, old buddy,” David said. “Think I'll mosey on down there and check out the pickings. Who knows? Maybe I'll get lucky and find some sweet young thing to play with. Won't get much from smiley here. Not with you hanging around, that's for sure.”

Henri smiled. David was joking, of course. There were very few girls who could resist his charm. It was said that, at the dances, he had only to choose and the young lady was his. Even among the “steadies” his good looks did not go unnoticed, and it was only his height and firm muscles that saved him from many an unpleasant scene. David had been Henri's best friend for several years. Despite his constant teasing, which Henri knew was never malicious, David was the most likable person he had ever met. There was just one thing about him that Henri could not come to grips with. David Greer was the only person he knew who hated his father with such a passion that just to mention the man's name would transform him, the most handsome, the most popular student at the Collège de Ste-Émilie, into a silent portrait of bitterness and gloom. Henri had met his father several times while visiting David at his home. It was not long before he learned to keep his opinions to himself in the presence of Mr. Archibald Ulysses Greer. He recalled with horror one evening at the Greer home when David was explaining to him how the trade union movement had organized workers and how these unions could prevent the exploitation of the working class by the Company owners. David's father had been reading his paper in an adjoining room. He heard his son's discourse. He came directly into the room and, without uttering a single word, slapped David hard across the face with the back of his hand.

“That's for talking bullshit,” he said. “And you can tell your friend to leave.”

David turned towards Henri holding both palms upward as a form of apology and from the look on his face Henri could tell how badly his friend felt. It was then that his father came up from behind and whacked David a sharp slap across the back of his head.

“Insolent little bastard!” the man screamed. “Up to your room. And you, Morin, out!”

Henri watched David as he strolled in among the dancers. He was not bitter or gloomy now. Not while he was on the prowl. Henri looked over the tops of the liquor bottles and smiled at his face in the mirror. He hoisted his glass and smiled again as he thought of his father and how happy he was not to hate him.

T
ime passes in a bar. Henri had gone over all of the days he had spent with Shannon, every word and every kiss. Then, he went over the details, the beginning of the end. He peeled enough of the label off of the bottle that the barmaid had to ask him what kind of beer he wanted. He drank them, one after another, and watched the girls, their twirling skirts and heaving breasts. Each time he went to the washroom it was a new challenge, just trying to walk straight.

Suddenly he remembered Sylvie and how things were going to be different and how wonderful it would be. But when he tried to explain to the young woman behind the bar that he would leave his beer there and would be gone only long enough to make a phone call, he realized that, in his mind, he was saying the right words but they were coming out all wrong.

“Another beer?” the young woman asked. She looked at Henri with kind eyes, and she laughed softly. “Maybe you'd better take it easy, eh?”

“Easy?” Henri replied. “You bet.”

He looked across the bar, past the young woman. The bottles on the shelf swirled before his eyes. He stood up straight and stared above the tops of the bottles. The face looking back at him wore a strange, clown-like grin. Henri smiled at the face and it grinned even more, until both faces were smiling broadly. Henri held up his glass and nodded in a gesture of friendly camaraderie, which the fellow looking back at him returned in kind. Satisfied and happy in his mind, Henri returned to his slouched position at the bar while his new friend disappeared behind the bottle tops and the mirror behind them.

Henri decided not to call her. What if one of her parents answered the phone? They would guess that he had been drinking. No doubt. And if she answered, what would he say? “Oh, hello there, Sylvie. It's me, Henri Morin. I'm really drunk, you know, but if you'd still like to see me, I'm at La Tanière. The band is very good and there are lots of people here. Hurry though. I don't know how long I can stand here like this.” How long would it take to say all that, answer her questions, and repeat word after word? No, better to stand here, and think; to drink, and think, and see everyone having a good time. Maybe she'll come along later. That's it. If she stops by to see me, fine. No reason to feel guilty. For sure, she will realize the shape I'm in. And I'll tell her I would have loved to see her tonight but I resisted calling her. I just didn't want to start a relationship on such a bad foot. Or was it footing? Anyway, she would understand. I know it. And then, probably, she would stay with me. And we'd lean on the bar together and talk, truly, shoulder to shoulder. Later, if I'm able to walk still, we might go down to Chemin de Notre-Dame, to the benches along the river, and watch the eddies swirling by.