Authors: Anthony Bidulka
Even if you’re feeling better, you’re still wounded
and its much colder out there than it is in here and
the two don’t mix well.”
“Okay, but you’re going to take some of your
winter clothing back.”
We exchanged some clothing with me ending
up with most of my stuff again including the
hooded coat, gloves and boots. My colourful scarf
was once again around my neck where it
belonged, rather than wound around my head
like some kind of gay bandage. I headed outdoors.
It had begun to snow again but lightly and, unlike
last night, there was no wind to blow it around
like a blender full of flakes. The first thing I
noticed with alarm was that any sign of our
arrival the night before, footprints or trampled
trail, had been wiped clean by the storm. If anyone
was looking for us, they’d have no clue we were
here. As I began to tread my way around the barn,
past the bare-branched bushes, I began consider-
ing tentative plans for attracting the attention of
would-be rescuers. Perhaps a big SOS carved out
in the snow with urine? And then, like one of
those unrelated thoughts that sometimes come
unbidden and inexplicably to the forefront of my
brain, I thought of Sereena. And my mother’s mys-
terious tea service embossed with the letters S-O-S.
The answer came to me. The expensive tea set
belonged to…Sereena…Sereena Orion Smith—
SOS. I had never before connected Sereena’s full
initials with the well-known international request
382 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
for help. For a bizarre moment something inside
me told me it was no coincidence at all. But I let it
go. I had more pressing matters to attend to at the
moment.
As I rounded the corner of the greying struc-
ture I looked for the tallest thing around.
Anything would do, a tree, an abandoned piece of
farm machinery, anything I could use to get
myself high enough to get a lay of the land and
maybe spot a nearby village or farmyard where
we could find help. Then I saw something immea-
surably better. A house.
An hour later we were moved in. The old farm-
house, obviously obstructed from our view last
night by the storm, was as deserted and aged as
the barn. It had no electricity, little in the way of
insulation and didn’t even have any straw, but it
had a wonderful wood fireplace complete with a
well-stocked woodpile and several boxes of
wooden matches. It didn’t take long for the one-
room shack to heat up. When we were sufficiently
warm I presented Jared with another surprise. I’d
found in the cupboards a veritable gourmet meal
of canned goods. There was tuna and mushrooms
and Vienna sausages and corn and a can of peach-
es for dessert. And no meal is complete without
half a 1.75 litre bottle of Canadian Club rye
whiskey, cut with snow melted over the fire. We
were so famished that for several minutes we sat
on the overstuffed couch pulled near the fireplace
and ate with barely a word between us.
Anthony Bidulka — 383
“I have never tasted a better sausage in my
life!” Jared enthused as he chowed down on the
last of the rubbery pink encasements. “It’s my
new favorite food.”
“That’s good. There’s plenty more in the cup-
board. We may have to live on them for a while.”
I checked my watch. “I can’t believe we’re getting
tipsy on C.C. at eleven in the morning.”
“All we need is a two-four of Pilsner and this
would be the perfect white-trash Christmas Eve.”
“Should we sing a carol or something to make
it official?” I asked as I licked tuna juice from my
fork.
Jared winced. “Let’s save that for the made-for-
TV movie version of this escapade.”
I laughed and passed him the corn.
We fell silent for a few more minutes, eating our
grub and enjoying the fire licking at the logs. A lot
was on my mind. Not only the obvious—our pre-
carious situation—but something possibly even
more precarious, assuming we lived. For the
moment I could think of nothing more to do to get
us out of our situation, so as I was busy sating my
need for food and warmth, I allowed myself a few
minutes of idle wonder. Wonder about that kiss.
Was it simply a thank-you kiss? A desperate
“we’re gonna die so let’s kiss” kiss? Or was it
something more? All of this got me thinking about
what had happened at Diva’s two Saturdays ago.
Jared had found out, in a most humiliating and
public way, that his partner of five years had had
sex with someone else. I had no idea what had
transpired between Jared and Anthony since that
384 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
shocking revelation. Had they been fighting? Had
they broken up over it? It was time to find out.
“Jared,” I began hesitatingly, “I wanted to say
I’m sorry for what happened at Diva’s.”
Jared eyed me carefully over the can of corn
but took the time to eat another spoonful before
saying anything. “Why are you sorry?”
“I guess I feel responsible. If it wasn’t for me
and the case I’m working on…it wouldn’t have
happened…I mean…the thing at Bare Ass Beach
would have hap…but, well, you wouldn’t have
been at Diva’s and Daniel wouldn’t have seen
Anthony and…well, you know.” I can be extreme-
ly eloquent when the situation calls for it.
He ate a peach sliver.
“I’m sorry you had to find out the way you
did. I’m your friend and I should have been there
for you. And I should have been there to kick
Anthony’s butt.”
Jared repositioned himself on the sofa so as to
be directly facing me. “Russell, I knew about it.”
Knock me over with a feather boa. “You did?”
Suddenly the flames of the fire seemed to be lick-
ing at my cheeks.
“Yes. And why would you want to kick
Anthony’s butt?”
I stumbled over words for a bit. “Well, for what
he did to you. For fooling around on you. But I
guess…but…You knew?”
“Yes.” His voice was calm and revealed noth-
ing, but his eyes had turned an unusual shade of
green.
“And…you’re okay with it?”
Anthony Bidulka — 385
“I have to be, Russell. It happened this sum-
mer…when Anthony and I weren’t a couple.”
I had raised my glass of watered-down rye to
my lips but lowered it again afraid I might gag.
The fire was all over my body now and I could feel
perspiration form at my temples. “What are you
talking about? You and Anthony have been
together for years!”
“Not this summer we weren’t,” he said, his
voice soft.
And I didn’t know about this!
Shit. I didn’t know about this.
How did I not know about this?
“What happened? Did you find out he was
cheating and leave him?” I cannot believe the
garbage that sometimes comes out of my mouth.
The look Jared gave me then was odd. It was
sad. It was critical. It was discomfited. “I did leave
him. Not because he was cheating. But because I
was.”
I’m sure my eyes grew as big as they do in car-
toons. My throat tightened and all I could do was
stare at him.
“It has always been a challenge, Anthony and
I, with our careers, especially mine, keeping us
apart for such long periods of time. I come back to
Saskatoon and he sometimes flies out to my loca-
tion shoots, but it isn’t perfect. And I began to
think it was too hard. I foolishly thought love
should be easier. So when I met a man, another
model, who seemed to be…easier…I decided to
end it with Anthony.”
I finally found my voice and some whiffs of
386 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
good sense and said, “I was just so used to you
being away, sometimes for months at a time, I
never noticed you were…really gone. And
Anthony didn’t say anything. It’s hard to remem-
ber but I don’t recall anything obviously amiss
this summer.”
“That could be,” he allowed with a sad bob of
his head. “We talked about what to say to people
after we, or rather I, made the decision. But we
never got that far. We were still very much in love
but it took Anthony’s persistence to show me that
love still counted for something. I was such a
knucklehead. But he kept on calling, just to talk,
just to see how I was, no judging, no histrionics,
no accusations or pleading to get back together.
Sometimes we’d be on the phone every night for
hours at a time. He really believed in us. And I dis-
covered that something worth having is worth
working at, no matter how hard. So you see, when
Anthony and your client had their thing on the
beach, he had every right to be with another man,
because I was too.”
I took a punishingly huge gulp of my bitter
drink and contemplated my shame. Had I been
prepared to believe the worst about Anthony in
order to fuel a childish fantasy of a possible future
with the lovely Jared Lowe? I had believed it pos-
sible Anthony was a philanderer and a blackmail-
er and maybe even a kidnapper. I sunk under the
weight of how incredibly selfish and down right
stupid I had been.
“In the fall,” Jared continued, “we got back
together, stronger than ever and we’re very happy,
Anthony Bidulka — 387
Russell—as really, we always have been.”
I nodded mutely. What a fairy tale this turned
out to be. My knight, sitting next to me beneath a
tattered horse blanket, had revealed the chinks in
his not so shiny armour. My maligned friend
Anthony turned out to be the injured party and
ultimately heroic character. As for me? Well, I
turned out to be the fool. And the kiss? Who
knows for sure what it was, perhaps an intimate
act of thanksgiving for our survival.
“I’m glad it’s turned out that way,” I said, real-
izing without a bit of doubt that I was being com-
pletely truthful.
“Me too,” he said, reaching out to take my
hand in his and giving me a meaningful look.
“Someone will come for us, Jared,” I told him,
wanting…needing to change the subject.
“Do you really believe that? Who? Who will
come for us? No one has even the foggiest idea
where we are.”
That was when the banging started.
Despite our history of congenial dislike, I was
never so glad to see someone as I was that
Christmas Eve morning to see Darren Kirsch,
coming through the door of that shack with two
RCMP officers at his heels.
“Are we disturbing something?” were his first
words as he directed a bemused stare at our sur-
prisingly cozy situation: cuddled up on a couch in
front of a roaring fire, full of corn and tuna and a
little slap-happy from downing rye shooters.
388 — F l i g h t o f A q u av i t
“How did you find us?” we both asked at once,
shocked by the men’s appearance and jumping up
from the couch like two teenagers caught in a half-
nude embrace.
“We’ve got a snowplow and two cruisers wait-
ing outside,” he told us matter-of-factly. “I’ll fill
you in on the way back to town.” He stopped
there and gave us a careful once-over. “You guys
okay?” he said, barely disguising something not
dissimilar to genuine concern in his voice.
We nodded and hurriedly gathered our meagre
belongings while one of the RCMP officers put out
the fire and Darren and the other officer per-
formed a quick search of the farmhouse. I don’t
know why they were searching it, but I didn’t
really care. I just wanted to get the hell outta there.
An hour or so later when we arrived at the
Saskatoon police station downtown, we were
greeted by my mother, Anthony, Kelly and Errall.
Apparently, the Saskatoon cops first became aware
something was amiss via—in a roundabout way—
James Kraft. NYPD officials had contacted Darren
to tell him to keep an eye on me because James’
death was now being ruled “suspicious,” and I,
given my involvement with the case, was topping
their list of people they wanted to investigate.
Darren called the house to give me a heads-up and
reached Errall, who had come over with Kelly after
Mom, in a state, had called Kelly fretting about my