Burrard Inlet Read online

  ‘We’ve put the Talon to bed, and the ground crew – it will take time to get up there.’

  ‘I’ll wait with him.’

  ‘You don’t have to.’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  She asked him for his GPS coordinates, which he gave her before signing off.

  Mark wedged his board upright in the snow, shrugged off his pack, and assembled his three-piece shovel. He began to dig. The snow was loose and treacherous and he sank in up to his waist several times, and each time had to crawl and wriggle out. He cleared as much snow as he could with the shovel, and when it became awkward working around the body he dug with his hands. He worked too hard and too fast, and by the end he was gasping at the thin air, the clouds of his breath surrounding him like smoke. Manoeuvring the body was made more difficult by the kid’s board, and so Mark unstrapped it and brushed it off. When he saw the design on the base he had a feeling not of startlement or surprise but of recognition: it showed a single gray wing against a black background. He wedged the board upright in the snow next to his own. By chance he’d arranged the boards tip to tail, so that the two wings mirrored each other, forming a haphazard set.

  Then he hauled the kid up. There was a marble-hardness to his flesh, and his limbs would no longer bend or move. Chunks of snow filled his mouth. Mark scooped it out with a finger, mostly because he didn’t like looking at that, and laid the kid down below his board before removing his goggles. His eyes were open and cloudy, opaque. Icicles clung to his hair, giving it a spiky, cartoon-like appearance. The cold had kept rigor mortis at bay, and his face had not set in the rigid expression that Mark had seen on other corpses; it was instead still peaceful. He had probably been lying there for a couple of hours, cooling and freezing and going solid. All the heat and life had drained out of him and was possibly still around him, spreading slowly through the snow and dissipating.

  Something cold touched Mark’s cheek. He looked up. Across the sky a cloud front was spreading like an incoming tide, on the verge of washing out the moon. Fat white flakes spiralled down in the darkness. In some places islands of stars remained visible. Letting his knees bend, he sank back into the snow beside the kid. He lay like that and stared at the wide black sky and the softly falling snow, which seemed to emerge from a fixed point overhead and spiral out as it got closer to him. The hypnotic motion made it feel as if he were floating upwards through a vortex, rather than watching as the flakes drifted down to him. Those that landed on his face melted into beads of water, and every so often one caught in his eyelashes, making him blink.

  As he waited, the sweat cooling beneath his jacket, he tried not to think about what would come next, and the aftermath: the newspaper headlines and the official inquiries and the six o’clock sound bites. They would present it as a minor tragedy, all the more poignant for its timing. He tried not to think about what people would say over dinner, and at parties: that it was such a shame, such a waste, a young man who’d had so much potential. They would shake their heads and click their tongues and point their fingers and find somebody to blame, and if there was nobody else to blame they would blame the kid himself; they would castigate him for riding out of bounds, for being irresponsible, for taking unnecessary risks.

  To block all that out, at least for a while, Mark thought about the ride on which he had been led. He went over each turn and cutback, each crescent curve, replaying the nuances in his mind as he had been trained to do before a race. He closed his eyes and visualised it – the trees, the cliff, the last graceful turns – and then he imagined how it must have felt, to slip so freely and easily into the snow and have it close around you like a blanket or a shroud. The brief flare of panic, the struggle, and then a settling, a stillness, when you relaxed and let go and allowed yourself to dissolve into the cold. And as he lay there imagining these things, still the snow came swirling down, and as he lay there he imagined, too, what might come next, what might come after: the darkness and the nothingness and the endless peace.

  ‘Mark.’ The crackling voice sounded very far away. ‘Mark!’

  His hand must have already been on the radio; otherwise he wouldn’t have known where to find it. He raised it to his mouth.

  ‘Here,’ he said, but it came out oddly. His lips felt fat and awkward.

  ‘Why have you not answered?’ It was Minette. ‘We’re at your location, but there are no tracks and we can’t see anything in this snow!’

  He worked his mouth, testing his jaw, then said, ‘I’m right here.’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m okay.’ He paused for breath. ‘I’m right here.’

  ‘Right where? We don’t see you. Can you use a flare?’

  ‘Okay,’ he said. Mark tried to open his eyes. It was harder than he expected, and that was when he fully understood what he had done. ‘Okay,’ he said again, as if repeating the word could make it true. ‘Okay, I think I can do that.’

  ‘What is with you?’

  He shut off the radio. He didn’t need it. Eventually he got his eyes open and sat up. His jacket was slathered in snow. A cyclone of white whirled around him. He had to blink repeatedly to clear his vision, which was foggy and blurry, as if he’d awaked from days of slumber. He squinted into the dark, trying to get his bearings. Falling snow had completely covered the kid’s body; it was now a long white mound, at the head of which the board stuck up like a tombstone. He heard voices nearby, shouting and calling. About fifty yards away, he thought he could see faint shapes moving about in the white-out, insubstantial as ghosts.

  He reached into his bag for a flare.

  Tokes From The Wild

  The bus ride to Kurt’s hometown costs fifty bucks and lasts about eight hours. For the first ninety minutes or so, we’re giddy as kids heading off to day camp: we drink cans of no-name cola and play poker with loose change and talk about how awesome it’s going to be once we get there. But eventually Kurt runs out of coins and we run out of things to say, and we both end up staring out the windows. Even the landscape is boring – an endless panorama of flat, burnt-out fields and barren hillsides. And we’ve still got six hours of driving ahead of us.

  I pull out the hunting knife my parents got me, showing off for Kurt.

  ‘Sweet, man,’ he says. ‘What are you gonna do with that?’

  ‘Stab some bears.’

  Kurt grins. He has shoulder-length hair and a full beard, a rarity in our grade. Except for his tie-dyed shirts and tattered cords, he looks a bit like Jesus. We’re not exactly best friends – he’s lived in Prince George most of his life and only came down to Vancouver to finish high school. I was a little surprised when he invited me to go tree planting and stay with his family. I think he was a little surprised when I accepted.

  Halfway there the bus stops at a greasy spoon diner for a food break. We pour out onto the hot pavement, a mixed group of people too old or too young or too poor to drive themselves. While the others file inside, Kurt asks me if I want to smoke some weed. I’ve always been a bit of a chicken about pot but I tell him I’ll go with him. We sneak behind the diner; he magically produces his pipe and sparks it. The smoke hangs sweetly in the heat.

  ‘This is going to be great,’ Kurt assures me, casually exhaling. ‘I’ve never done it before, either – but my dad says tree planting rules. We’ll make wicked money.’

  ‘Sure,’ I say.

  I’m still too chicken to smoke any.

  At the bus depot we’re picked up by Kurt’s mom, Miranda: a middle-aged, frizzy-haired woman driving a station wagon. She gives me a tour of Prince George on the way to their house, which is a few miles out of town. Kurt keeps rolling his eyes, obviously embarrassed, but I like her. She seems cheerful, weary, and completely unassuming.

  She tells me, ‘The town might not look like much, but it’s home.’

  Everything is flat in Prince George – a collection of str
ip malls and bungalows and squat apartment buildings. On the edge of town we pass through an area of run-down stucco houses with untended yards. I catch glimpses of illegible graffiti, broken windows, a snarl of old wire fencing. Miranda shakes her head, clucking sadly.

  ‘This is the Indian Reserve,’ she tells me.

  ‘Oh,’ I say, as if that explains everything.

  At the next corner two children are playing hopscotch, grinning madly, their sun-browned skin gleaming in the sun.

  Over pasta and meat sauce that night I meet the rest of Kurt’s family. His dad, Fred, is a big, balding bushman who burps and farts at the table. Fred is a broker for the forestry companies. He’s the one who sold our boss, Clayton, the tree-planting contracts that Kurt and I will be working on. Then there’s Neil, the brother, who looks like a younger version of Kurt. He dresses the same, but can’t quite grow a full beard.

  Kurt also has a kid sister, called Sorrel. She’s about five or six years old, and seems out of place among the rest of the clan: she’s the only one with blonde hair and doesn’t take after her mother or father. When introduced she smiles secretively and says nothing, but throughout the meal I catch her sneaking discreet glances at me, sizing me up.

  ‘This sure is tasty,’ I say.

  Everybody nods politely.

  After dinner Neil takes me outside to show me his dirt bike: a two-stroke, 150cc Yamaha that he bought second-hand and fixed up himself. He hops on, twisting the throttle until my ears ache and a cloud of smoke surrounds us like noxious gas.

  ‘Ain’t it great?’ he shouts.

  I give him the thumbs up. He peels out of the drive, not quite in control, and tears off down the road. I stand and listen to the whine of the engine in the distance, wondering if he expects me to wait until he gets back.

  *

  Their house is a renovated cabin with no room for new bodies. Kurt and I will be sleeping in a canvas tent pitched on the front lawn, with square sides and a peaked roof. Inside, there’s a pot-bellied stove, a dirty rug, an old sofa, and two cots. I feel like I’m on safari. Kurt’s parents are charging me ten bucks a day and fifteen for the weekends. I’m not used to paying to stay at a friend’s house, but Kurt’s not quite my friend and the fee includes food, so I guess that makes it fair.

  I pick my cot, arrange my things, and get out my dad’s old Walkman. He gave it to me as a going-away present, along with his collection of battered tapes, instead of the MP3 player I asked for. I crank up the volume, sprawling out on the sofa, wishing I had something to read. The springs creak and groan as I shift around, trying to get comfortable. I’m on the second side of Harvest when Kurt comes in and asks me if I want to smoke some pot.

  ‘I don’t really feel like it,’ I tell him, without knowing why.

  I listen to him sucking on his pipe outside the tent.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Kurt moans, stamping his feet.

  We’re standing at the roadside in front of Kurt’s house, shivering, dressed in army pants, heavy plaid shirts, gardening gloves and hiking boots. It doesn’t feel like summer; the morning murk is cold, the sky a slagheap of cloud. Drowsy from lack of sleep, we wait in miserable silence for the sun to rise or for Clayton to arrive – whichever comes first.

  Headlights appear at the end of the road. A Ford pick-up with missing hubcaps and a rusty undercarriage rattles to a stop in front of us. We toss our gear in the back and hop in the cab to meet our boss. Clayton’s wearing an Oilers hat and has a can of Molson in his hand. When he grins it looks like a sneer because of an obvious harelip. As soon as we’re settled he puts the truck in gear and starts giving us the third degree: calling us rookies and city slickers and bed-wetters.

  ‘I’ve lived up here most of my life,’ Kurt protests.

  ‘The city’s made you soft. What a couple of bitch-tits.’

  He only lets up to swill from his morning beer. When the beer’s finished, he starts fishing around in the glove box. He pulls out a glass pipe and a sack of weed and packs the pipe while he drives, alternating between glancing down at his lap and up at the road.

  ‘Hope you rookies are ready to work. Us three are the only crew today.’

  He sparks, inhales, and thrusts the smoldering bowl at me.

  Kurt says, ‘He doesn’t smoke.’

  ‘What the fuck?’

  ‘Sure I do.’ I take the pipe before Kurt can argue. ‘Once in awhile.’

  As I puff on the mouthpiece, I can see Kurt staring at me in the rear-view. I want to tell him that I’m not inhaling, but I guess it wouldn’t make much difference. For him, I didn’t even bother to pretend.

  Tree planting is simple.

  At the worksite, you’re given a shovel and a belt with two sacks that dangle from your hips like giant gun holsters. You load the sacks with yearlings – baby trees – and head out to your allotted portion of forest. You stick the shovel in the ground, open a hole, drop in the tree – making sure the roots are good and deep – and stamp the hole closed with your boot. Depending on the terrain and what type of tree you’re planting, you’ve just made anywhere from five to thirty-five cents. Then you do it again. And again. And again.

  By the end of the first day my hands are raw with blisters that have popped and oozed, the arch of my right foot throbs from stomping on the shovel, and I’m so covered in bug bites that I look like I’m suffering from some strange disease. I’ve made about thirty bucks. Once I deduct my camp costs and the price of Clayton’s equipment rental, I’m breaking just about even.

  Tree planting is simple, but not easy.

  Clayton drops us off, already on his third beer, and tells us we did okay for a couple of rookies. He says it sarcastically, but I’m still grateful for the small scrap of respect.

  ‘Be ready on time tomorrow because we gotta pick up the rest of the crew.’

  Neither of us points out that we were the ones waiting for him this morning.

  Kurt and I doze our way through dinner, staring at our plates, slumping in our chairs. His folks ask us questions about our day and we answer vaguely, not really hearing. Fred ribs Kurt for planting less trees than me, but Kurt barely cracks a smile. After we wash up Kurt tells me he’s going to buy some beers from the local store. He doesn’t invite me along but by that point I’m too tired to care. I collapse on my cot. I never want to move again. The thought of getting up tomorrow morning makes me feel nauseous. I want to phone my parents, tell them I’m through. Nobody will really care if I do, but I’ll always know that my first big adventure was a failure. I turn my face into the seat cushions, feeling the sting of tears in my sinuses, wishing I could just dissolve into the air, into nothing.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  I look up, rubbing hurriedly at my eyes. Sorrel’s at the entrance to the tent, one hand pulling back the canvas flap. I smile, both embarrassed and relieved that it’s her who’s caught me acting like a baby.

  ‘I hurt my hands today, that’s all.’

  I hold them out so she can see the open sores.

  ‘I’ll get you my cartoon band-aids,’ she says. ‘That’s what I use.’

  She goes to get them for me and helps put them on. They’re decorated with Looney Tunes characters: Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and Wile E. Coyote. She concentrates very hard on placing the brightly coloured strips carefully over my blisters, getting the angle just right. Her head is bent over my hands, and her hair is a tangle of twigs, grass, and whirlpool snarls. At that moment I’m certain she’s a changeling.

  ‘When I grow up,’ she says, ‘I’m going to be a doctor.’

  Five of us squeeze into the truck the next morning.

  The two new crew members are Annie and Walter. Annie’s got dreadlocks and the well-muscled arms of a seasoned planter. On the front of her shirt is a picture of Bob Marley, grinning and smoking a huge reefer. Walter is Clayton’s friend from way back. He’s f
idgety and soft-spoken with a pinched, rodent’s face. When he does speak it’s difficult to understand him because he’s missing five teeth from the upper front row. Just before we arrive on site he lights a joint, which gets passed around. I puff at it tentatively, still faking my inhales, hoping I don’t look like the amateur I am. The cab becomes a giant hot box. When we open the doors to get out clouds of smoke follow us like ghosts.

  I shove trees in my sacks and head for the woods, hoping the second day won’t be as bad as the first. It’s not. It’s worse. Sorrel’s bandages peel off in minutes and my hands start to bleed. I can barely hold my shovel. I know I’m not going to plant enough to cover camp costs. It’s raining today, a penetrating drizzle that slithers off my slicker and works its way into my boots, until my socks squelch at each step. By lunch, I’m so miserable that I forget not to inhale when the half-time joint comes my way. After two or three tokes I feel better. Much better. I stand up. The sun has come out and the trees are very green and the air smells very fresh. Clayton’s looking at me. They’re all looking at me. Annie asks me how I feel.

  Great. I feel great.

  They snicker at my virgin-high, but I don’t care.

  The rest of the day is much easier, and the rest of the week.

  On Friday Clayton takes Kurt and I out to a bar in Prince George. There are about a dozen TV screens mounted from the ceiling, displaying NHL highlights or Keno results, and the walls are decorated with ice hockey sticks, signed jerseys, old team photos, and other sports memorabilia. Clayton’s warming to us, finally. He buys me my first beer, telling me I’ve earned the rookie of the week award by planting more trees than Kurt. I clock Kurt’s expression and try to make a joke out of it, saying I got lucky with a good patch of ground. For awhile we talk hockey, debating whether the Canucks will make the play-offs this year, and then we talk movies. Apparently Clayton used to run a video store, which delivered the tapes to your house, but it went out of business.