Motorcycles & Sweetgrass (12 page)

Now he was standing on a little service road deep in the wooded land recently purchased by the Otter Lake First Nations. Maggie had told him of the divisions and controversy over the purchase. Yet, the land looked the same as any other chunk of land left over from the ice age. John shivered at his memory of the ice age. It was a harsh time, and though he sometimes missed the occasional mastodon steak, he much preferred swimming in temperate waters.

In the woods here were poplar, cedar, pine, the odd maple and oak, and lots of scrub. And as he stood there, he could feel eyes on him. Something out there was watching him, closely. He hadn’t spent most of his existence, except for the last few years, living by his wits without getting to know when he was being observed.

John turned around slowly, his eyes trying to pierce the foliage. Then he glanced up, and saw a sizable raccoon perched on a large oak tree branch, looking down at him.

John narrowed his eyes and ground his teeth. He hated raccoons, and they hated him. It was a feud whose beginning had been lost in time and memory. But the hate remained and burned brightly. To his right, he saw another of the creatures, and behind it, four more. He definitely had the size advantage, but they had the numbers. Theirs had long been a stalemate, but that didn’t mean the idea of a final settling of scores wasn’t on their minds. This time, the ceasefire held, and they stared at each other, lost in their own cruel thoughts.

Then, one by one, the raccoons turned and disappeared into the greenery, leaving the man alone, his fists clenched.

“I hate fucking raccoons.”

Somewhere deep in the forest, the raccoons were thinking the same about him.

NINE

That night, for the first time in a week, Maggie had the opportunity to fix Virgil a decent meal. With all the trouble over her flat tire, she had decided the rest of the day was a loss as far as work went, so she headed home to see what she could rustle up for dinner. Sitting on the table in front of her and her son were some Shake’n Bake chicken, corn niblets, mashed potatoes and a salad. For the first time in a long time, Maggie felt happy. She was actually humming to herself.

Virgil, however, was silent. He ate his food haltingly, barely glancing up from his plate.

“So, what did you do today?” she asked, salting her corn. He responded with a Virgil shrug. “That much, huh?” Again he only shrugged. “Want some more potatoes?” He nodded this time and she dished him out a heaping spoonful.

Though he loved Maggie’s mashed potatoes, which were becoming a rare treat, today he could barely taste them. His mind was elsewhere.

“Hey, know what happened to me today?” she asked.

For the first time that meal, Virgil’s head came up and he looked at his mother. “What?” he asked cautiously.

“I got a ride on a motorcycle! Remember that guy that was at Grandma’s house? Well, I got a flat tire out on the back roads,
and bang, there he was, out of nowhere. He gave me a lift to Tim’s place. He’s seems like a really nice guy. Says he knew Grandma some time ago.”

A flat tire, she said. That explained some things. “His motorcycle, huh?” Virgil said slowly. “Did you have fun?”

“It was scary at first. I can’t remember the last time I was on one of those things. But I just held onto his arms and let him do the driving. Anyway, got the tire fixed almost immediately, thanks to Tim. I was kind of lucky, I suppose. I could still be standing at the side of the roadway back at Hockey Heights.”

Virgil could hear the excitement in her voice.

“Can you pass the bread, please?”

Virgil handed her the platter.

“Who is he?” he asked.

“His name is John Richardson. That’s about all I know about him, other than that he rides a vintage 1953 Indian Chief motorcycle. When he dropped me off at Tim’s, he said he’d see me around, so I guess he’s here for a while. Hmm, wonder where he’s staying.”

Virgil’s mind was racing. Richardson? The stranger had told him his name was John Tanner. There was something about the guy… something not quite right. Again the image of this man kissing his grandmother so passionately filled his mind, and for a brief moment, he contemplated telling his mother. But somehow, the words just wouldn’t form in his mouth, and the moment passed.

“How’d he know Grandma?”

“I asked him that but he didn’t really say. Just that they met a long time ago. He was kind of evasive, mysterious about it. Maybe he’ll tell us more tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I invited him over for dinner.”

Dinner, here, in this house? Virgil wasn’t sure that was a good idea. Why had his mother gone and done that?

“You know, to thank him for helping me. If it weren’t for him, I could still be up there by the arena, instead of having dinner with you. There might even be ice cream in the freezer.” She smiled a happy smile.

Virgil didn’t share that smile, though Maggie didn’t seem to notice. “There are lots of cars that come through that way. Somebody would have stopped for you eventually,” he said.

“Not at that time of the day” was Maggie’s response as she dug into her chicken.

Virgil couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a nonrelative come over for dinner—especially a guy with two different last names. Make that a
good-looking White guy
with two different last names. And a motorcycle.

Virgil ate faster.

It was late into the night and the whole community of Otter Lake was asleep. Except for a certain motorcyclist who was busy fiddling with the uncooperative back door of the church at the centre of the village. He’d been there for about ten minutes, cursing under his breath, trying to pick the lock. He was a man of many talents and this was one of the more recent skills he’d picked up on his travels. Finally, with a slight flick of his wrist and the correct pressure on the lock tumblers, he succeeded. The door swung open, and John entered.

Standing amid the pews, he was surprised by how bright it was inside. Shining in through the big windows was four-fifths of a full moon hanging above the southern horizon, and more light
filtered in from a street light on the far side of the road. Making himself comfortable, John sat on a bench three from the front. Above the altar was a large, elaborately carved crucifixion scene, complete with the agonized figure of Christ, nailed for eternity. The statue must have been as big as he was.

“Hello.”

John’s voice echoed through the empty building. It was like he was in a cave, or in an empty universe. Why he had broken into this church he couldn’t really say, other than that he had a need to see this man whom everybody flocked to. The one hanging so high up above everybody else. So there John sat, alone with his thoughts in the semi-darkness, struggling to understand this man’s appeal.

In the moonlit air, he could see dust motes floating all around him, like so many dreams. In the wood of the pews and the altar, he could feel the hundreds or thousands of unanswered prayers that stuck to the varnish like dead flies on a windshield. In the bricks of this building he felt great fear, and ironically great love. It didn’t make sense to him. But then, this Jesus guy never had made sense. He wished he could meet the man, and see if he was as great as everybody said. But unfortunately, Jesus didn’t come around much anymore.

John stared at the elaborate figure on the cross, taking everything in. He counted Jesus’ ribs, examined the pained expression on his face, the nails in his hands and feet, the cut in his side, the crown of thorns, all carefully reproduced on this wooden icon. He remembered reading somewhere that there is no record that this Jesus guy ever laughed or even smiled. Jesus sounded boring, in fact, aside from the fact he could do some clever magic tricks. John himself could do a couple of amazing things too, but nobody had ever raised a steeple to him. What did this Jesus have to offer?
Everlasting life? John had been around quite a long time himself and he knew the novelty wore off. And most people led dull lives anyway, so what was the draw? There was that place called Heaven, but it seemed too hard to get into. Too many rules to follow to get them to open the door. Jesus looked to be in so much pain, so sad, so pathetic, so alone. John had been through some tough times of his own, having survived big battles, silly accidents and just bizarre things that had left him pretty screwed up, but he would never have let anybody make a carving of him looking so wounded. So vulnerable. He had way too much pride for that. The more the stranger gazed at the figure on the cross, the less he understood what power Jesus had had over Lillian, and so many others. For several hours John sat there, trying to make sense of all that surrounded him in the church. The dust motes swirled and the moon migrated across the sky, and still John was no closer to understanding. The nails in the man’s feet and hands looked particularly nasty. That especially annoyed him.

“You let them do this to you?” John asked aloud. “And your Father… He let them do this to you?”

Oddly enough, the two men had much in common, though both would deny it. Each had been born of a human mother, and had had a father with a less-than-corporeal presence in their lives. There was, however, one big difference.

“At least I got the chance to beat the hell out of my father,” said John, more to himself.

Realizing he would not find the answers he had come looking for, he decided to call it a night. But before he left, he signed the guest book at the front of the church.
John Prestor
.

Something woke Maggie. She looked at her clock: four in the morning. She listened carefully; perhaps she’d heard a squirrel in the attic, or maybe a nearby branch had fallen. But the house and the surrounding woods were quiet. She listened some more, and still heard nothing. For a fleeting second, Maggie thought of the motorcycle.

It had been just over three years since her husband died. And since then, she’d been busy raising Virgil, taking care of her chiefly responsibilities and trying to find her way as a single woman again. She hadn’t had a date since his death, nor had she wanted one. But she wasn’t thinking of the upcoming evening with John as a date. It was merely a dinner to thank him for his help. The man was among strangers, and he had been a good friend of her mother’s, after all. Over dinner she could find out more about how they knew each other. She was sure there was a story there. And it was just a dinner. Virgil would be there. It was just dinner.

Still, John
was
young, incredibly good-looking, muscular, and had that magnificent machine. Maggie knew a lot of girls went for the bad boys (even if they usually married the good ones). But then, the fact John rode a motorcycle didn’t necessarily make him a bad boy. That was just a stereotype… Here she was, a fully grown woman, lying in bed thinking about this strange man. This is what teenagers do, for Christ’s sake, she thought. Something is seriously wrong with me. Still, it had been nice to hold on to his arms, real tight. It had been a long time since she’d been that close to a man, or felt like this. Whatever this was. There was something about the guy…

But it was only dinner, she reminded herself. Realizing she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep now, she got up to make some coffee. By the time the sun rose, she’d been through all her dusty,
long-unopened cookbooks, trying to find just the right recipe for this run-of-the-mill thank-you dinner.