A Rhinestone Button (30 page)

“No.”

Crystal broke a couple of eggs onto the grill. “You know Darren’s crazy enough to believe his father’s still haunting him?”

“Liv said she’s seen the ghost.”

“I’ve got no doubts his dad is haunting him. But not in the way he thinks. I remember when his dad beat him nearly to death and landed him in the hospital when he was just sixteen. That’s when he took off and never visited ’til his old man was dead. He was scared of him, and never got over being scared. When men get haunted like that they’ll do anything to make sure nobody’s got that kind of power over them again.”

She served up his breakfast and watched him while he ate. “This hair of yours. It’s almost white.” She pulled at a ringlet near his ear. “Those curls natural?”

“Yeah. I know I should get a haircut. Just haven’t got around to it.” A thing he often said when farmers taunted him about his girlish curls.

“No! Don’t get it cut!” said Crystal. “Every time I see you I want to run my fingers through that hair, like I used to do with my boys, you know? No. You want to find yourself a woman, you hang on to that hair. You know what Liv said? She said you make her think of a Christmas-card angel. She thinks you’re shy. Not like the other guys who come in here. Nothing like Darren. She likes you, you know. Don’t think I don’t notice how she gives you the biggest piece of pie. The way she talked, I thought you two were getting together.”

“She went back to Darren.”

Crystal refilled his coffee cup and her own. A smudge of coral lipstick on the rim. “It took me four tries to leave my husband,” she said. “I’d get myself all settled into a new place and he’d come begging and pleading and making promises, bringing me flowers, and I’d fall for it, ’cause I loved him. It’s like giving up cigarettes. You got to give it a few tries before you kick the weed.”

A bell tinkled as the door to the café opened. Crystal glanced over the high counter that separated the kitchen from the rest of the place. “Huh,” she said. “Ed.”

“Ed?”

“Why don’t you take your plate out there, sit with him.”

“I don’t think so.”

She shooed him with her hands. “Go on. I’ll just nuke myself up a muffin and join you.”

Ed sat in Job’s usual window seat wearing a cap that read
Specialized Stud Service
. Job had heard Ed had found himself an apartment and got a job packaging orders in a stud-and-bolt factory on the outskirts of Edmonton. He was reading an article in
Bowhunting Deer
entitled
“Grunts, Bleats & Blats! New Calling Tactics That Make Bucks Hunt You.”

“Haven’t seen you for ages,” Job said. He put his plate and coffee cup on the table and sat.

Ed closed the magazine. “I came down to make sure Liv was all right. She left a call on my answering machine. Sounded really upset. Then I couldn’t reach her. You seen her? Nobody answered the door at her place. Darren’s truck wasn’t there. It’s probably nothing. She just takes off with Jason now and again. Still, I thought I better check. I figured Crystal might know where she is.”

“She’ll be out in a minute.”

“Great.” He went back to reading his magazine as if Job weren’t there.

“You hunt?” said Job, pointing at the magazine.

“Used to. With my dad.”

“Huh.”

“What do you mean ‘Huh’? You don’t think fags hunt? I’ll have to stick to making almond squares, then, like yourself. Maybe I’ll give out jars of jam at Christmas.”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“What did you mean?”

“I didn’t mean anything.”

Crystal brought out her mug of coffee and sat with them. She winked at Ed. “Nice to see you boys getting along,” she said.

“You know where Liv is? I got a call from her yesterday. She sounded upset.”

Crystal squeezed a creamer into her coffee. “Yeah, she came in yesterday afternoon asking for a few days off. She and Jason took the Greyhound to Salmon Arm last night.
I guess she and Darren had another scene. She had to get away for a while.” She spooned sugar into her coffee and stirred. “Did Job tell you he had a fire at his place last night?”

“No.”

“Burned down the halfway house and part of the cabin.”

“Really? That’s crappy. Anybody hurt? Lose any livestock?”

“No.”

“How’d it start?”

“They don’t know,” said Crystal. “Thing is, Job’s got no place to stay.”

“Oh?”

“Liv tells me you’ve got a spare bedroom. I understand she’s stayed with you from time to time.”

“When she had to get away from Darren. I’m really not set up for guests.”

“Don’t you think you could put Job up for a couple of nights? Until he gets things straightened out for himself?”

“That’s okay” said Job. “Really.”

“You afraid of what people would think?” said Ed. “You staying with me?”

Job said nothing. But yes, he was.

“There’d be a hell of a lot more talk if you parked your truck at my place,” said Crystal. “But if you want to do that, it’s fine by me.”

“No, really, I’ll be okay.” Job waved a hand to show it was all right but saw that his hand was shaking and grabbed hold of his coffee cup, as though it would anchor him to the table.

“You’re looking pretty shaken up,” said Crystal. “Might do you some good to get away. Get Jacob to look after the farm for a few days.”

Job bit an indentation into his lip to stop the tears, self-pity drifting into his gullet like indigestion. Where else could he go? “Yeah, maybe,” he said.

Ed was holding an armful of shirts and pants when he opened the door for Job. He bent down to retrieve scattered socks as Job came in. “I wasn’t expecting anyone,” he said. A tabby wound itself around Job’s legs as Ed disappeared into the bathroom with the clothes. Ed came out a moment later cupping his hands. “I don’t have much to offer you. Coffee?”

“No. I’m fine.” Job stared down at a cat toy near the door. A string hanging from a hook on a stick. At the end of the string, a bell encased in clear plastic.

“I haven’t had a chance to do any shopping this week,” said Ed. “I’ve got nothing in the fridge for supper. We could go out and get a bite to eat.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“You got a place in mind?”

“We could go to the Strathcona.” Thinking there might have been something special in the beer in the pub to bring on the colours he hadn’t been able to find since.

Ed looked surprised. “The pub? Sure. They don’t have much of a menu.”

“They have those two-wiener hot dogs.”

“Hot dogs it is then.”

They took seats at the back of the dark pub. Job ordered a draft to drink with his hot dog, then ordered another, then another when not even a hint of colour appeared. “You always drink like that?” asked Ed.

“No.”

“You got to take it easy. You don’t drink much, it’ll hit you fast.”

“I’m okay.” He finished off his glass and listened to his father’s watch, but he saw no metallic dot there.

“Watch stop?” said Ed.

“No.” Neither the hum of voices in the pub nor the noise that tumbled in from outside when anyone opened the door produced flitting colours or shapes in his hand. Nothing at all. He waved a waitress over, ordered another draft for himself and asked Ed if he wanted another too. Ed shook his head. “So Liv stays at your place sometimes?” Job asked.

“Only occasionally,” said Ed. “When things get really bad at home.”

“She ever talk about me?”

“Yeah, from time to time.”

“You think she’s going to stick it out with Darren?”

“You better ask her that yourself,” said Ed. He sipped his beer. “You see anything of Will?”

“No.”

“I phoned him,” said Ed. “But he wouldn’t answer my calls. A couple of times I went over to the farm, but Barbara wouldn’t let me in the house. I hung out at the café for a while, in case he turned up. Talked to Ruth a few times. She said Barbara and Jacob had Will on a pretty tight leash. Doing like that nutcase preacher said, telling Will what to watch on TV, what to read, where to go, watching him night and day. Crazy.” Ed pulled out a pack of gum and folded a stick before putting it in his mouth. “Jacob talk at all about him?”

“I don’t talk to Jacob much.”

“He’s right on the farm with you.”

“We kind of avoid each other.”

“Where do you eat meals?”

“I heat a kettle on the wood stove. Eat a lot of sandwiches.”

“Doesn’t sound like much of a life. I don’t know why you put up with that situation.”

“My dad pretty much trained me to put up with anything,” he said, and was surprised at himself. He listened to himself talk to hear what he’d say, as if he were listening to someone else. “All my dad ever cared about was what other people were going to think, what people at church were going to think. Now I don’t know how to do anything. I’ve spent all this time feeling guilty about things I’ve got no reason to feel guilty about. For God’s sake, everyone masturbates.”

Ed, caught off guard, scratched his chin.

Job waved a hand. “I’m sorry. It’s just like what Liv said to me. You get angry at these people for doing these things to you. But really I’m pissed with myself, for believing it all.”

“Yeah, well, it’s that whole Santa Claus thing, isn’t it?” said Ed. “You find out Santa was your dad with a fake beard on. You get mad at Dad for lying to you, but then you get over it, and you grow up. Then you bullshit your kids into believing in Santa Claus.”

“I never believed in Santa Claus,” said Job.

“Never?”

“Dad wouldn’t let us believe. He said if we could stop believing in Santa Claus, we could stop believing in God. He didn’t want to set a precedent.”

Ed laughed, making Job, for the moment, feel capable of easy banter. “I think the thing that pisses me off most is that I spent all that time scared shitless,” said Job. “When I could have been living.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. I was just like that, scared shitless. Scared of my dad, mostly. What he’d think. We were so close. Then, in my early twenties, I couldn’t stand it any more and decided not to hide it. I told my folks I was gay. Mom went to the therapist with me. Now when I talk to her about it she says, ‘I don’t care,’ so I know she still does. But when I told my granddad he said, ‘I can still give you a hug like I always did, can’t I?’ And that was it. With him, nothing’s changed. With Mom, it’s a federal case.”

“How about your dad?”

“My dad? He won’t talk to me. I phone ahead and visit Mom when Dad’s down at the Legion.”

“You said you went hunting with him.”

“That was then. I spent all those years trying to prove myself to that old fart. To get his approval. Finally I just gave up trying.”

The waitress brought Job’s beer. He sipped from it and licked foam off his lips. “I could never do anything right for my father either,” he said. “One time I nearly drowned in grain trying to get his approval.”

When he was eleven he had clammered onto the mound of barley rising in the old wooden granary as his father manned the auger that shot the grain through a hole in the granary roof. His feet sank six inches into barley. His back itched and his chest ached from grain dust, but Job shovelled away the cone of barley, which had dropped from the auger, to all four corners of the granary until he
was crouching beneath the roof. He could have escaped through the door at the apex of the granary roof, but he didn’t, trying to prove his worth to his father, trying to please him, trying to make him see he was a good worker. That he was farmer material, the highest praise his father would allow.

“I was struggling to keep the pile of grain away from the auger’s spout so grain wouldn’t jam it,” he said. “And I found myself trapped in the back of the granary, with my shoulders against the roof. I couldn’t reach the door. Dad couldn’t hear me shouting because of the noise of the auger.”

“So, you got out, obviously,” said Ed.

“Dad cut the motor finally and dragged me out of there. He slapped my back as I spit black and called Mom out to bring me water, and I didn’t have to do chores that night because Mom wouldn’t let me. But he never apologized or said anything about it. He just read his newspaper in the living room after supper as I coughed and hacked in the kitchen. Things were different after that, though. He started talking like I’d be the one to take over the farm, and not Jacob.”

The waitress came by to take away the glasses and plates and left the tray with the bill. Job, feeling generous, slapped his credit card onto the tray. As they waited for the waitress to return, Ed said, “Something I was wondering. Will ever tell you I made that crop circle?”

“
You
made it?”

“Sure. I mean, it was Will and me. My idea. I thought I’d give you that sign you were looking for. To go out with Debbie Biggs. Took us less than an hour. We made it just like that professor guy said, the one in the interview with
you. I thought you’d stumble on it when you were checking the cows. I never thought Carlson would spot it, or phone the television station.”

“Will never said anything. He let everybody think I was nuts.”

“Hey, you were the one who went on TV holding a dead duck and said all that stuff about demons.” He slapped Job’s arm and laughed. “Come on,” he said. “It’s funny.”

Job nodded grudgingly.

“Listen, Job. I didn’t mean to make you feel unwelcome this morning. You want to stay a couple of days, or even a week if you need to, you’re welcome.”

The waitress came back with Job’s card and receipt. As Job stood to leave, a whirl of vertigo came over him. He sat. “I think I drank too much.”

“I’ll give you a hand out.”

On the way out of the restaurant, Ed held him up from behind, holding both his hands as if they were dancing the schottische. “Why’d you park so far away?” said Job. “Everyone’s staring.”

“Nobody’s staring.”

But people on the street were staring. A man in a plaid shirt and John Deere cap did a double take as he approached. “Want to take a picture?” said Ed. The man shook his head and walked on.

“How much farther?”

“Not far.”

“Don’t hold on so tight.”

“All right. All right.”

A pickup slowed and drove alongside them. Four farm boys still in their teens, two in the cab and two riding in the
back, leaning on a bale of hay. One of the boys in the back banged a yellow plastic shepherd’s crook against the truck box. “Hey, look at this, guys,” he said. “Lover boys dancing on the street.”