Bow Grip (22 page)

“You read my mind.”

She leaned forward and kissed me. This time, I kissed her right back.

I heard three short raps at my door. I opened it and Hector passed me a to-go cup of coffee, still so hot I had to pass it back and forth between my two hands so I didn’t burn myself.

We sat on the bench outside for a couple of minutes, smoking and talking about the weather and when I was going to be back in Calgary, stuff like that. Neither of us mentioned our previous conversation, and that was just fine by me. I figured trying to talk about how I had already said too much might not be the best approach. I knew that him bringing me a coffee was his way of saying everything was still cool with us, and so I just drank it and let the sun feel good on my face.

Hector left to take care of some business, and I went back into my room and called Allyson. The voicemail picked
up, which was what I was hoping for. I had rehearsed exactly what I was going to say.

“This is a message for Ally, and for Kathleen, too. It’s Joey here, and I was just calling to see if either of you happened to know of a child’s car seat that would fit into the front seat of a 1997 F450 Super Duty V8 Turbo Diesel Automatic tow truck, preferably one that would still leave room in the cab for a kind of large, smelly husky dog and a middle-aged male driver? Call me back and let me know. Looks like I’ll be needing one in about six or seven months from now. Any information you have would be very helpful. Thank you.”

I pressed the hang-up button on the phone, feeling kind of smart-assed and proud of myself. The phone rang while still in my hand, startling me. It was Dr Witherspoon’s office saying that the doctor had been called out of town and asking if I could reschedule my three o’clock appointment. I said I would have to call back later in the week when I knew for sure when I would be back in town, trying to sound disappointed. I hung up.

I packed up my stuff, loaded my bag and the cello into the truck, and walked over to the office to check out. I told Lenny I’d be back next Friday, and he promised me he would try to keep 119 empty for me when I returned.

“Home sweet home, right?” He smiled from one side of his mouth as he passed me back my credit card. I felt sorry for Mrs Petrovich all over again.

The boxy blue and white shape of the Capri Motor Court shrank and then disappeared in my rearview mirror as I drove up the on-ramp and squeezed the truck into the traffic heading east. The city turned into rolling hills scabbed over with suburbs, and then the farmland took over, and the
sky opened wide on both sides of the highway. I cranked up the Johnny Cash and rolled my window all the way down, stuck my left hand out and let it catch the wind, scooping and dipping the cold blue day between my fingers.

Every time I drove this road it reminded me of a thousand other trips home. There used to be a fruit stand next to the cut-off where my dad and I would stop and get cherries for my mom on our way back from doing business in Calgary. It was a gas station now, complete with a Tim Horton’s and a car wash big enough to pull a motor home through.

Rick Davis and I had dragged our hungover asses back up this highway more than a few times, after weekend trips to the city to see a concert or to buy Christmas presents. I drove him home after his hernia operation a couple of years ago. He was stoned on codeine and lamenting about how old we were getting, how we used to only come to the city to do fun things, not like now, when he only got out of Drumheller to see the specialist or his lawyer. How he’d still take his wife back in a second, if she’d have him, even after everything that went down, but don’t ever tell her that.

Allyson and I had driven a rental car home from the Calgary airport right after our honeymoon, tanned and laughing and kissing at all the stoplights. It was almost dark, in early summer. We had the windows down and the smell of clean hay and sage and manure and rain made us glad to be back in Canada. The streetlights lit up and faded around her profile as we drove, and I thought she was perfect. Thought we were perfect.

Drumheller appeared in front of me before I felt ready to be home. Small towns have a way of taking the very thing or person you were most hoping to avoid running into and stuffing it right up your ass at the earliest possible opportunity.
I had just pulled off the highway and turned onto the main drag when he appeared in my windshield, standing right there in the middle of the crosswalk in front of the bank. Mitch Sawyer slapped the hood of my truck with one hand and motioned for me to pull over.

I took a deep breath and angle parked in front of the dollar store. He squeezed along the driver’s side of my truck and rested one hand on my side mirror, chewing on a stir stick and squinting into the sun.

“Dude. I saw your mom at Safeway last night. Said you were in the city. Did you run into the muff-divers?” He stuck out his tongue and waggled it up and down.

I felt like drilling him right there in the middle of Main Street. Instead, I reached out and adjusted my mirror, forcing him to step back and take his hand off my truck.

“I saw Ally and Kathleen a couple of times. I’m going back next weekend. You want me to give them your regards?”

He laughed, like I was making a joke that we were both a part of. The guy still hadn’t figured it out that I couldn’t stand him. Thought we were partners in the same misery.

I told him I had to go meet Franco, and backed my truck up before he could say anything else. It was twenty after twelve. I knew exactly where to find Franco. He never got around to making a lunch on Sunday night. Sunday was the night he played poker at the Legion, so he’d be at Ida’s, in the last booth by the window, halfway through his clubhouse sandwich and fries. Black coffee with one sugar. Water with no ice. I’d go find Franco, and he’d tell me how business was good, even better than when I was around, just getting in his way. Tell me how he didn’t miss me a bit. Then we would go back to the shop and I would have to rescue
all my new wrenches out of Franco’s toolbox so I could get some work done.

I watched Mitch take the corner by the drugstore, hiking his jeans up over the wedge of white hairy ass that threatened to escape from under his jean jacket whenever he took a step.

Maybe I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up, but at least I had figured out what I wasn’t going to be.

First of all, I need to thank my partner Mette Bach, for the dinners and the back pats and the dog walks and the domestic bliss that made finishing this book possible. I have only ever written short stories before this, and I literally could not have done this without her belief in me. My deepest love and gratitude goes out to my cousin Dan Bushnell, for being the other fearless artist in a family that wishes both of us had pension plans. Not only does he keep me on track during the lean times, he is also the one who pried the hard drive out of my melted computer after my house burned down and saved this manuscript from joining the long list of things I lost that day. I also want to thank again all of the friends, colleagues, and especially strangers who helped me recover from the aforementioned house fire; without their love and support this project might never have survived, or been seriously delayed. I also want to thank Brian Lam, Robert Ballantyne, Shyla Seller, Nicole Marteinsson, Tessa Vanderkop, and Janice Beley and the rest of the folks at Arsenal Pulp Press for all their hard work and continued support over the last eight years. Lorraine Grieves and Cris Derkson for the cello tips. Sheri-D Wilson and my sister Carrie Cumming for the answers to my Calgary questions. Jan Derbyshire for the great late night novel read-off, and finally, the British Columbia Arts Council for keeping food on the table so I could write. I owe you all a million thank yous, and a steak dinner.

Ivan E. Coyote was born and raised in Whitehorse, Yukon and now lives in Vancouver. She is the author of three collections of short stories, all published by Arsenal Pulp Press:
Close to Spider Man
,
One Man’s Trash
, and
Loose End
, which was shortlisted for the Ferro-Grumley Fiction Award in 2006. Ivan is also a renowned live storyteller.
Bow Grip
is her first novel.

BOW GRIP

Copyright © 2006 by Ivan E. Coyote

 

Third printing: 2008

 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form by any means - graphic, electronic or mechanical - without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may use brief excerpts in a review, or in the case of photocopying in Canada, a license from Access Copyright.

 

ARSENAL PULP PRESS

Suite 200, 341 Water Street

Vancouver, BC

Canada V6B 1B8
arsenalpulp.com

 

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the British Columbia Arts Council for its publishing program, and the Government of Canada (through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program) and the Government of British Columbia (through the Book Publishing Tax Credit Program) for its publishing activities.

 

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to persons either living or deceased is purely coincidental.

 

Photograph of Ivan E. Coyote by Chloë Brushwood Rose

 

Printed and bound in Canada

 

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication:

 

Coyote, Ivan E. (Ivan Elizabeth), 1969-Bow grip / Ivan E. Coyote.

 

eISBN : 978-1-551-52273-9

 

I. Title.

 

PS8555.O99B69 2006 C813’.6 C2006-904646-8