My October (27 page)

Luc sprang to his feet. “It's not as dire as she makes it sound. He's back in school now. They took him back. He attends a private school. A good one. Saint-Jean-Baptiste,” he said, speaking fast. “They are very strict there. Lots of rules and regulations. He's been rebelling. Nothing outside of the normal teenage stuff.” He flashed a congenial smile.

The female officer looked at Hannah. “There has been trouble at school?”

Hannah nodded. She told the story of the gun.

The officers exchanged looks. The female officer scribbled something in her notebook, which was small and black and official looking. Her handwriting was large and loopy.

“It wasn't so serious as that,” said Luc.

The older officer raised his eyebrow. “Showing up at school with a gun?”

“It wasn't loaded,” said Luc. “It was an antique, a showpiece from the Second World War.”

The woman kept scribbling. She asked for the model and whether it was registered, and where the weapon in question was now.

Luc began to answer, but the young officer waved a hand. “Your wife,” she said. “I'd like your wife to speak.”

Luc sat back down in his chair, the big red velvet armchair that had once been his father's. His arms were crossed tightly over his chest and he stuck out his long legs, taking up practically the
entire space on the living room rug. Hannah's books were still stacked on the floor beside the couch, and he nudged them with his toe, toppling them.

“Sorry,” he said to the officer. He had interrupted her with the noise. But it was obvious he wasn't sorry at all. Lyse watched him with wide, worried eyes.

It was the older cop who asked, finally, if Hugo had ever shown signs of being suicidal.

The room went silent. Luc tried to laugh off the suggestion, but the laugh was odd, a single strained note, like the bark of a dog.

“We have to consider it,” the man said. “We have to cover all the bases.”

Lyse jumped up, fluttering her arms like a trapped bird.

“It's okay, Maman,” said Luc. “Calm down. It's not that, trust me.”

But his mother wouldn't be calmed. She burst into tears, and before Hannah could stop her, ran from the room.

PART THREE

20

H
ugo stood shivering at the entrance to the Décarie Expressway on-ramp on Sherbrooke Street, holding a handmade cardboard sign. He had no parka or gloves, and his fingers were raw. The sun was up now, a pale yellow balloon without warmth. The real fire, the blazing reds and oranges, had lasted only seconds. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been awake this early. Blink and it was over. The traffic light turned red. He scanned the cars as they slowed. There were lots of them, even though the sun was just rising. He waved his sign and walked up the line, trying not to look scared, bending at every vehicle to look in through the passenger window.

Most people turned away. They were afraid too, he realized. What a strange thought.

As the light changed, a man made a gesture with his hand. It wasn't a wave, exactly. Smaller than that. A flick of the index finger. Hugo ran toward him. The car was an Echo, bright metallic blue. Ontario plates.

“Buckle up,” the man said in English after Hugo climbed in. He turned the car onto the ramp and for the next few seconds concentrated on merging and then positioning himself strategically in the middle lane of the northbound expressway. When this was accomplished, he turned to Hugo and stuck out his hand. “Frank,” he said simply.

“Joe,” replied Hugo, looking away.

“Hey,” said the man, “you're English.”

His handshake wasn't firm, although it could have been the angle. Frank's hair was brown, starting to grey at the sides. He wasn't fat, exactly, just sort of soft, like his grip. And even though it was mid-autumn, he was wearing short sleeves. His arms were pale and covered with dark hairs. He began talking about himself almost immediately. He had spent the week in Montreal at a convention, he said, not bothering to say what kind. For five whole days, he had spoken nothing but French. Well, that wasn't entirely true, he admitted. His French wasn't that good, but he'd been surrounded by French people trying to speak English to him. He couldn't understand half of what any of them said. Joe, he announced, was the first honest-to-god English person he'd spoken to since leaving Ontario.

He gave Hugo a sidelong glance. “You from out of town too?”

Hugo shook his head. He was from Montreal, he said, but his family was mixed. He regretted it as soon as he'd said it. He had to watch how much he gave away.

“Ah,” said the man. “You're a
mélange
, are you, a half-breed? I suppose there's quite a few like that now. The real English left years ago, the purebreds. I ought to know. They're all in Toronto with me.”

They were approaching the Trans-Canada Highway, about to merge. Hugo and the man fell silent so that he could concentrate again on the road. Hugo turned his whole body to look out the window, thinking about the man's words.
Half-breed
. Was that what he was? It seemed demeaning, somehow, that a life could be boiled down to this one defining aspect. On either side of the elevated ramp, the roofs of factories and the tops of stunted trees rushed by. Hugo stole a look at Frank, who was hunched over the wheel, following the other cars into the merge.

Once they were on the Trans-Canada, Frank unbuttoned the top of his pants, laughing when he caught Hugo glancing at him. “I ate way too much this week. Steamies. You know what steamies are, Joe?”

He meant
steamés
, those hot dogs they sold on the Main, but Hugo didn't correct him. Frank was chuckling to himself, but not in a warm way, not including Hugo in the joke. Hugo wasn't sure how to react.

“How old are you, Joe?” he asked suddenly.

“Sixteen,” said Hugo. He'd been anticipating this moment.

There was a pause as Frank digested this. Hugo couldn't tell if he believed it. He was wearing Ray-Bans. He asked if Hugo had a girlfriend.

Hugo's heart missed a beat. He tried not to glance at Frank's open zipper. Was he angling? He didn't know what to say. There was a girl in his class. Angélique. Her face rose like a moon in his mind, white and ethereal, the way she sometimes came to him in dreams. He shook his head. He'd never said a word to her.

“You're kidding me, right?” said Frank, his face lighting up with amused surprise. “A good-looking guy like you? All grown up?” He paused and smiled as though Hugo were the most
interesting person he'd met in a long time. “Sixteen years old,” he said, grinning broadly.

Hugo shrugged.

“Haven't met the right gal yet, is that it?” He had put it as a question, but he didn't wait for a reply. “There's no rush, Joe, believe me. You got plenty of time for all of that.”

Hugo was warm now. Too warm. Frank's probing was making him uncomfortable. He took off his hoodie and, on Frank's insistence, tossed it in the back seat. He sort of regretted it. He felt exposed in his T-shirt, but Frank had the heater up so high he was starting to sweat. They covered the next few kilometres in silence. Hugo's head began to droop.

“You want to sleep?” Frank said, his voice kind. “Be my guest. It's a long, boring drive.”

Hugo pushed his seat back as far as it would go and closed his eyes. He was grateful for the lift. He had spent the whole night on his feet, trying to keep warm. From the reading, he'd walked back to Saint-Henri, taking his bearings from the cross on the summit of Mount Royal. Instead of going home, though, his feet had surprised him by keeping on walking. He'd ended up at the canal, wandering by the water, looking for shelter. Itinerants camped out there. Kids like himself and older homeless men. Someone had lit a fire, and Hugo had stopped to thaw out. But then a fight broke out and he'd left. His breath grew heavy. He felt himself sinking. And then something startled him. Frank's hand was on his inner thigh.

Hugo jerked his head back and slammed his knees together.

Frank pulled his hand away. “Sorry, pal. You were interfering with my gear shift.”

Hugo stayed wide awake after that. Frank was a
pédé.
That
was the word they used at school, the casual mocking insult the boys threw at each other—but until this moment, Hugo had never knowingly been in the presence of one. He angled his legs toward the passenger door, making sure no part of him came anywhere near Frank's gear shift.

When a sign for a highway rest stop appeared, Hugo told Frank he had to take a leak. Conversation had stopped some time before, and now the radio was blaring. They had been listening to a rock station, an hour of golden oldies from the seventies and eighties, but it was the top of the hour. The news had just come on.

“Looks like we're going to war,” Frank observed after the anchor delivered a report about al Qaeda. He turned on his flashers, and for the first time in thirty kilometres, Hugo felt like he could breathe again.

“Heads are going to roll in Afghanistan,” Frank went on, “and they won't be American. You watch. They got drones.” He removed his Ray-Bans for a second and looked over at Hugo. “You ever heard of drones? You don't need a pilot to steer them. It's all done by remote control, like a video game. I saw a program about it on the military channel.”

He kept talking even once the car was stopped, but Hugo had had enough. He grabbed his hoodie from the back and opened the door. Frank pretended not to notice his haste. He told Hugo he would wait and leaned in the sunshine on the car's hood, trying to look nonchalant.

After ten minutes, when Hugo failed to reappear, he drove away.

Hugo watched with relief from the window of the food court. He marked the event by buying a Tim Hortons coffee and
a chocolate cruller. Then he went back outside. It had warmed up since dawn, but not enough to tempt people to eat out here. The picnic tables looked abandoned and sad. He sat down at one of them and licked flakes of frosting off his cruller. He was famished. The dark-chocolate dough was so soft and fresh, he barely had to chew. The coffee warmed him. He'd never had a full cup before, and it wasn't too nasty when you loaded it with cream and sugar. Not far away, there was a parking area with three eighteen-wheelers lined up in a row.
Mastodons
, his mother used to call them. He'd loved them as a little boy.

A man was standing near the front of the farthest one, checking his tire pressure. He was wearing an undershirt even though a stiff wind was blowing. His arms were thicker than Hugo's legs. Hugo finished his snack and walked over.

The man didn't look up. He was shorter than Hugo had supposed, and his legs were slightly bowed. On his right arm, just beneath the shoulder joint, was a tattoo of a man either falling or leaping through the air, his limbs outstretched and flailing. Above the tattoo was a banner with a single word.

“T'es français,”
said Hugo, walking up to him.

The man looked up, startled.

Hugo pointed at the banner.
Icare
. From the Greek myth.

“Québécois,” the man said in French, wiping his hand on his jeans and offering it to Hugo. “Jean-Louis Joncas.”

There was a pause. “Hugo Lévesque,” said Hugo.

Jean-Louis worked out of Saint-Jérôme, forty minutes north of Montreal. He was a long-haul driver. His pickup this time had been in New Brunswick, and he was on his way to Toronto. After that, he was going to New York and Pennsylvania. Only then would he head home again. A short trip, he said, starting
with the 401, which he disliked. It was a dead strip, he told Hugo. Good for nothing but paying the bills.

Hugo screwed up all his courage. “You take passengers?”

The man looked sharply at him. “You are alone?” Unlike Frank, Jean-Louis Joncas waited for an answer, appraising Hugo's face in the bright noonday sun. When Hugo nodded, he asked his age.

Hugo told him the truth.

“I could get in trouble,” Jean-Louis said, looking at him with chocolate-coloured eyes. “Big trouble. How do I know you're not a runaway?” He paused for half a second. “Not that that would stop me.” He did a quick check to see if anyone was watching, then pulled open the passenger door of the truck's cabin.

Once they were safely on the highway, Hugo discovered that Jean-Louis was a talker. Driving a truck might seem romantic, but the reality was boredom and long hours of solitude. Jean-Louis was like a bottle uncorked. He had been driving trucks for two decades, he said, even though he was only thirty-three. Hugo laughed. Jean-Louis must think he was a complete imbecile. He knew, after all, how to subtract. But Jean-Louis swore it was the truth. “My stepfather did overnight runs on weekends, delivering bread up north to supply the lumber camps. When I was thirteen, he asked me if I wanted to come along. It became a thing we did. Something to share. One Saturday, we were speeding up the highway, and he asked if I would take the wheel. He was sleepy, he said. It would be safer. He could nap. It was supposed to be a short nap, twenty minutes, tops, just to give him energy. But in the end, I drove the whole night through. I had never even driven a car, but there I was at thirteen, driving a fifty-three-foot tractor-trailer.”

“No one stopped you?”

Jean-Louis shook his head. “When I pulled in at the end of the run, I told them my stepfather was worn out from the drive and that I would unload the shipment. Truth was, he'd been in the tavern all afternoon with his buddies. So I unloaded the bread, turned the truck around, and drove all the way back to Saint-Jérôme with him snoring beside me in the passenger seat. Just before we reached this coffee shop outside town, I poked him in the shoulder. The sun was almost up. The sky was starting to brighten. When he saw that, he started cursing me. What did I think I was doing? I was heading in the wrong direction. He would catch it big time because of my incompetence. We pulled in at the coffee shop, and he gave me a dressing down right there in the parking lot. I tried to explain, but he wouldn't let me speak. Then this waitress came outside, a friend of his, and she started yelling. At him. I'd
made
the trip, she said. She had seen the truck leave at dinnertime the day before. That wasn't a sunset out there. It was a brand new day.”