Bow Grip (4 page)

“The vegan? I thought she drove you crazy.”

“Well, I never said it was a match made in heaven, but still, she buttered my toast for a couple of months and it helped snap me out of it.”

“I don’t need to snap out of anything, Davis. I’m fine.”

“According to you. But your sister and your mother and Franco think you’re a grouchy bastard who only eats canned soup.”

“Franco talks too much.”

“You already said that.” Rick lit the joint, right there in the kitchen. “Go change your shirt.”

I cracked open the window and pushed the ashtray across the table to him. “I thought you were gonna smoke that thing in the garage?”

“Jesus, they’re right. You
are
uptight.”

“I just cleaned the whole house, you’re here for ten minutes and now it smells like a youth hostel.”

“Let’s go get your wick dipped, my friend. You are one high-strung individual.”

I let my shoulders drop and sighed. “One beer. And you leave the handgun here.”

“Whatever, Oscar. I’m driving.”

The parking lot outside the Capitol was packed, mostly muddy pick-ups and SUVs. It was only Thursday night. It seemed like forever since I had been to the bar. Ally hated bars. Said they didn’t foster conversation. She wasn’t much of a drinker, either. Just red wine. I only saw her drunk once or twice, at dinner parties.

There was a cluster of folks smoking outside the front doors, huddled on the sidewalk, blowing into cupped hands and breathing little clouds of steam and smoke into the cold. I forgot about the smoking ban. It had been that long since I had been out drinking. Smokeless bars in Alberta. Weird.

Franco and his threesome pulled up chairs for us. Marianne, Charlotte, and Sophie. Sophie was kind of cute, drinking vodka and cranberry, and smelling woodsy. White white teeth. Marianne was obviously the French teacher, as she seemed to be the one paying close attention to Franco, who was holding court, Labatt’s sceptre in hand.

“Here we go, Joey and Rick, Rick and Joey.” He motioned to the waitress, who sidled towards the table, a tray full of empties and ashtrays balanced on one hip.

She leaned over and gave the table a healthy shot of her cleavage. “What can I get you fellas? Another round for you too, Franco?”

We ordered and she disappeared with Rick’s credit card. Apparently being the recently divorced guy meant I didn’t have to pay for my drinks. Maybe my mom was right about silver linings.

“Joey can tell what’s wrong with an engine just by giving it a listen,” Franco told the girls. “That’s what’s gonna make him a good musician, I bet. The ears.”

I could suddenly feel my ears glowing red and hot. This was the part where everybody tried to introduce me to any single woman in the vicinity. It was no wonder I didn’t ever feel like going out. I sat through a pitcher, watched Franco and Rick lose a game of pool to Marianne and Charlotte, made enough small talk with Sophie to not seem rude, and hopped in a cab alone around ten-thirty. It was raining almost snow, and the wind had picked up.

Buck Buck pounded the tiles in the kitchen with his tail when I came through the door like I’d been gone for a week. I scratched him behind the ears for a while, then turned on the television and crossed my fingers for a good movie to be on.

Then the power went out. Streetlights, too. I opened the curtains all the way to let a bit of moon in, turned on the gas fireplace, and lit the candles on the coffee table. Allyson used to love it when the power went out. I hauled the cello out of its case, pulling its wide torso up close to my face. I liked the smell of it. Wax and wood and something coppery, like an old penny. I picked out a tune in the dark with my fingertips. I hadn’t figured out the bow yet, so I kind of plucked away like it was an overweight guitar. The first little bit of “I Found My Thrill on Blueberry Hill.” Not exactly a sonata, just the first thing that came into my head. The cab driver had been playing it in the car on the way home. CKRW. All the oldies, all the time.

My dad used to sing that song to my mom when I was a kid. They would dance in the kitchen, him in his grey work pants, my mom giggling, her slippers whispering against the linoleum. I always did like that song.

I
spent the rest of that weekend eating, sleeping, cleaning, and screwing around on the cello. I raked the leaves off the yard and the boulevard, drained the gas out of the mower, and cleaned the gutters. I made a big pot of chili, and learned to make a wheezy but recognizable note with the learned to make a wheezy but recognizable note with the bow instead of just my thumb, which was raw on the one side. I played some Beatles records really loud, played with the dog, played with myself. I had a good time.

I went to work Monday with a new haircut and some semblance of a new attitude. Cranked up some Frank Zap-pa in the shop instead of news radio. Took Franco out to lunch.

I had my head under the dash of a Ford Tempo installing a new wiper relay when Franco tapped my knee.

“Telephone, Joey. It’s Jim Carson. The cello-man.”

I took the cordless from him.

“Hullo, Jim.”

“That you, Joey? It’s Jim Carson here, out at Archie’s. I’m calling because the car I bought from you broke down. Can’t get it started, and I can’t figure out why. Had one of Archie’s boys take a look too, no dice. I was wondering if you could come around and have a look for me, see what’s up?”

“Sure, Jim, sure. I’m sure it’s nothing major. Like I said, I gave it the once-over before I put it up for sale, but I’ll come check it out. You around tomorrow morning? I have to take the oil to the recyclers, I’ll be driving right past your place.”

“I was hoping you could come sooner than that. I bought the car to get out of town. I was supposed to leave this morning, but the car quit running. Won’t even turn over, and I’m supposed to be on my way already.”

“Righto, Jim. Sorry about that. I’ll come around in an hour.”

I told Franco I was going to run a few errands, and threw some tools in the truck. I felt kind of bad. There had been nothing wrong with the Volvo a week ago. I’d fix it up for Jim right away, because I didn’t want him asking me for the cello back. There was something about it. I’d have to ask Jim if he had any tips. Like how to make it not sound like I was dragging a cat backwards across a countertop, for instance.

Jim Carson lived in the southwest end of Archie Lang’s old place, the second driveway past the road that headed up to Archie’s big farmhouse. I turned right on a rutted dirt road that ran alongside a power line and into a small gravel lot containing an equipment shed, a corrugated tin pump house, and Carson’s yellow bus. The Volvo was parked in the long grass just on the other side of a neat row of firewood. Smoke billowed into the grey sky from the small chimney at the back of the bus. I wondered how much it would cost to insure that thing with a woodstove in it, although it didn’t look like the bus had moved since the cowboy had parked it three years ago, the tires were being swallowed up by horsetails.

I parked my truck and knocked on the bus’s accordion door. Buck Buck took off into the field after a gopher. Jim slid the door open and stood at the top of the stairs. “Keys are in it. I’ll put on a pot of coffee.”

Like I said before, he got right to business, that guy.
Didn’t even ask me in. I grabbed my toolbox and a canvas tarp out of the back of my truck, which I laid out on the grass, and then got into the car. I turned the key. It tried to turn over, whining and audibly draining the battery. Looked like he had tried to start it for a while, and run it down. I could smell gas. Flooded it, too.

I sat back in the seat for a minute. That’s when I noticed it. The soot. A thin film of fine black soot covered the entire interior of the car. It showed where I slid my finger along the dash, was already all over my palms. Then, underneath the gas, I smelled the tang of exhaust. Maybe he had a leak in the exhaust system, or a blockage in the muffler.

I popped the hood and got out of the car. Took the trouble light out of my toolbox. There was still enough juice in the battery to turn the engine over, maybe it had dirty plugs, or the flywheel was going on it.

I unlocked the trunk to grab the jack I had left in there when I sold the car. Lying next to the spare and the jack and the tire iron was a brand new roll of duct-tape and a coil of four-inch plastic tubing. It took me a minute, but then it all started clicking in my head. The soot. The hose. The tape. The smell of exhaust. The cowboy was in a hurry to leave, he had said.

My right hand reached automatically for the pack of smokes in the left chest pocket of my coat. I lit one with suddenly very cold hands. The cowboy had tried to commit suicide, but his exit had been thwarted by the fact that the car I had given him had ceased to run long enough for him to kill himself with. The man in the bus would be dead already, had he not traded me for a lemon of a used car.

I jacked up the Volvo so I could have a better look underneath. Slid my tarp underneath, and slid myself onto it.
I wasn’t so much looking for what was wrong with the car as I was trying to figure out what I was going to say to Jim Carson. Should I let him know I had stumbled upon what he had been trying to do? What if I was wrong? Fixing cars was what I did, what I had always done, but how could I fix this one, just so he could off himself in it? I could just give him back the cello and tow the car straight back to the shop, but that wouldn’t fix whatever it was that was wrong with Jim Carson. I had never shown much talent when it came to fixing people. I decided to stall a bit, tell him I was going to have to order some parts or something, and think on it all overnight. I let out my breath. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding it.

I packed up my tools, put them back into the truck, and knocked on the bus door again. He opened it right away, like he’d been standing right behind it. Handed me a steaming cup of black coffee.

He had two sugar cubes in one hand. Raised an eyebrow. Did I want some?

I nodded and he tossed them into my coffee.

“You figure it out?”

I took a sip, burned the roof of my mouth. Stovetop coffee. My favourite kind.

“Looks to me like it’s something in your exhaust system. For sure you need a new muffler. Need to get it up on the hoist to be sure. You didn’t put that cheap Super Save gas in it, did you? I see all kinds of fuel line troubles from bad gas. Maybe a fuel pump, hard to say.”

Jim showed the lines in his forehead. “I filled it up yesterday at Mitch Sawyer’s place. I never buy cheap gas. How long to fix it, you think? You got the parts?”

I shook my head. “Not in stock. Have to call Nelson’s
Auto, see if they’ve got any old Volvos on the lot, if not I’ll have to call the dealership in Calgary. That’s the only problem with those cars. Parts. I’ll take care of it, though, whatever it is.”

His face darkened. He shifted his weight to his other foot, scratched his stubble. “How long, you reckon?”

I didn’t dare ask him why he was in such a rush to asphyxiate himself. How would you approach something like that? I barely knew the guy.

“Depends on what I’m gonna need. I’ll tow it back to the shop right now, let you know when I track down the parts. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after. Let me check around, I’ll call you in an hour?”

“I don’t have a phone. I had to walk down to the Esso to call you this morning.”

“Can I leave a message for you with Archie?”

He shook his head. “We try to stay out of each other’s way as much as possible.”

“Right. Then I’ll just bring the car out when I’ve got it running again. It’s on me, Jim. Sorry for the hassle.”

It wasn’t until I got back to the shop that I realized I never asked Jim Carson if he even played the cello. Just as well, I figured. He obviously had other things on his mind.

I
gave Whit Nelson a call as soon as I got back to the shop and backed the car into the service bay. Whit had been shutting his salvage lot down early from time to time lately, and I didn’t want to miss him. Ricardo, Whit’s right-hand guy, was taking time off because his wife just had twins, and Whit himself was slowing down. I’d even heard it rumoured around he was thinking of selling his place, and that they were going to clear the lot and the old house behind it and build a Wal-Mart or something. That maybe Whit was going to retire out to him and Lily’s little place on Cub Lake. I’d have to drive to the A-1 Salvage out at the cutoff if Whit ever shut his place down, and I never liked either one of the brothers that ran that place. Whit got his nephew to check the lot for a used muffler, while Whit and I talked how’s business for a bit. I tried not to think too much about repairing Jim Carson’s car considering what he needed it fixed so bad for, but didn’t know what else I could do with a broken car except fix it. The nephew came back after a minute to say they had one, and Whit sent him back out to pull it for me, and invited me into the office for tea.

I used to love coming out to Nelson’s Salvage for parts with my dad, ever since I was a little kid and my feet couldn’t touch the floor of the cab in the old flatbed. Whit and my dad would always sit around and shoot the shit for a while before any business got done, drinking orange pekoe tea with canned milk and Roger’s sugar cubes out of the box, as was Whit’s way. He didn’t believe in coffee, never touched the stuff. Didn’t believe in exchanging money without
sitting down for a cup of tea first, either. The kettle was always warm on the back burner of the stove in the tiny lunchroom behind the front counter. Sometimes he’d let me fool around with the forklift in the warehouse, a couple of times he even put a car in the crusher, just for us to watch. Lily, his vastly bosomed wife, kept a supply of cookies or macaroons in a tin on the Formica table, next to the pile of old car magazines.

The cookie supply dried up a few years ago, after Whit’s heart attack and the cholesterol alerts, and the sugar cubes became little pink packets of Sweet ’n Low, but the kettle was still on. He had Frank Sinatra playing on the greasy transistor radio on the shelf behind the register, and the floor smelled freshly waxed.