I wheeled the car off the pavement onto a worn-down patch that served as a laneway and car-park at the edge of the grassy clearing. I found myself at the end of a rectangular opening in the forest that had lined the road for the last eight miles. The pines were all uniform in height and girth the way cultivated trees are, looking too perfect to be a real forest, more like an enormous giant's garden. The trees were mature, but small by British Columbian standards, about ten inches across at the height of the man's waist. I figured that the area had been replanted perhaps twenty-five years ago, but I don't know anything about forestry really; it was just a guess.

The scene was almost identical to one I had passed a quarter-mile down the road. A single-story structure of white clapboard with a blue roof stood in the centre of the clearing and appeared to be two small cabins attached together. Indeed there were two front stoops, each with a roof over, one of which was completely screened in and obviously served as a summer kitchen while the other was used as the entrance to the house. A chimney, one of those prefabricated ones, fixed with a conical rain cap, ran up the side of the building behind the screened-in porch to reach two or three feet beyond the peak of the roof. There were two windows visible at the front of the building, each just to the left of a porch. The entire structure had been recently painted, the galvanized eavestrough that emptied at the right-hand corner into a rainbarrel appeared to be new, and the entire area had a well-tended look, the lawn was recently mowed and clusters of wild phlox formed a rough margin to the setting. To my right at the edge of the trees stood a rough-hewn table of weather-beaten boards and trestle-type legs and beside it another barrel from which water trickled continuously, darkening the oak staves down one side. A piece of black plastic pipe, again supported by a series of trestles, carried the water down the hill from a cold spring somewhere above.

I removed my sunglasses and placed them on the dashboard. Noticing there was no vehicle anywhere in view I concluded there was no-one around, but I opened the car door and stepped out, allowing it to swing shut with a dull clump behind me. At this sound a large dog burst like a black fury from under the wooden porch floor and sprang toward me barking loudly and continuously and showing his teeth. As the dog had about a hundred and fifty feet to travel I had no trouble re-opening the door and getting back inside. He reached the car and continued to growl, stopping periodically and only long enough to smell the car door and the two near tires, keeping a wary eye on me all the while. The dog had given me quite a start, such was the ferocity of his attack, and while my heart raced loudly I fumbled frantically for the car keys, for although I was quite safe in the car I wanted to put as much distance between me and that black devil as I could.

"To think I could have been much closer to him when he woke up," I thought, "that son of a bitch would tear your leg off."

I at last retrieved the keys and was inserting the correct one in the ignition switch when I heard a shrill whistle. The dog immediately turned his attention from me and trotted obediently toward the house. A man stood on the porch, a big man I'd never seen before, and from where he stood above the top-most of the three steps he had to squint into the sun to see me in the car. He raised one hand to shade his eyes and waved toward me with the other. I cautiously opened the car door and stepped out. The dog had by this time reached the steps and turned to watch me.

"Come on in," the man called to me, and to the dog, "You stay put!"

I felt a sinking, pulling sensation in the pit of my stomach, and a funny crawly feeling on the nape of my neck as though something eerie had occurred. The voice was his: the way he drawled "C'mawn in," clipping off the first syllable and drawing out the remainder, and then to the dog, "Stay put!" As I drew closer I could discern the features I had known so well; the receding hairline (despite the shoulder-length hair I would never have imagined on him), the brows were bushier and a full and greying beard all but disguised his face. But there was no mistaking those eyes. As a child I had learned to read every mood, reaction and emotion in them. They could look into you somehow, so that if you were telling a lie your body would lose it's nerve under that gaze and betray you by refusing to return it openly.

"He must have gained fifty pounds" I calculated as I came within twenty feet of him. The dog was lying facing me with his paws out front, "Ready to pounce," I thought wryly, but obviously no longer a threat as long as the owner stood over him.

"Hi Dad" I said quietly. "I didn't know you."

"You've changed some yourself in twelve years" he replied barely moving his lips in that taciturn way he had of speaking to strangers. I could sense his discomfort, it had been such a long time without any communication and I supposed he felt as unsure of the situation as I.

"What brings you to this part of the country?"

"I came to see you, all the way from Toronto. I took my annual vacation and motored out, been planning it for months. I didn't know how to reach you, so I just figured on tracking you down when I got here. So here I am!… I think it's time you and I buried the hatchet," I concluded matter-of-factly.

His eyes crinkled up first, then the rest of his face followed into a broad grin as he stepped off the porch and came forward, both hands extended. He grasped my hand in one huge powerful grip and placed the other hand on my upper arm.

"Nothing to bury Rodger. I didn't know if I'd ever see you again, but not because there was any hard feeling about anything; time just kind of slid by you know, and after awhile I just kind of waited … I guess to see if you'd write first or whatever, and I expect maybe you just did the same." He dropped his hands to his sides and continued, "So you drove out eh? By yourself?"

"No," I countered hesitantly, "I had help with the driving. A friend wanted to come to Vancouver to find work. He's an actor. We took our time, six days in all, arrived Friday, then I headed out here first think this morning. The lady at the general store sent me here. She said there were two places exactly the same, and yours was the second."

"Well, there are actually more than two. There were eight little overnight cabins here, two in each clearing. We put these two together to make one house, and next door we did the same. We made two into a garage to work on the cars and down the road there are still two cabins as they originally stood. There was a motel too, but it burned down years ago after they by-passed this section of road to straighten the highway. I bought the whole place for seven thousand dollars, and Tom and I moved things around a bit."

"Tom?" I stammered, incredulous. "You mean to say he's here too?"

"Sure. Tom and Leila are both here. When I was released on parole I arranged to move west. Tom joined me here later … I had neglected to tell them about him." His eyes laughed at me.

"So it was Tom all along" I said, vaguely aware I was gaping like a school-boy who has just learned some scandalous adult secret. "I can't believe we're standing here openly discussing this Dad", this last with wide-eyed emphasis.

"Well, it's been a long time now, I don't think we've anything to fear, and certainly not from you. No-one around here knows of course. It was in all the papers when it happened but by the time it was all over and I came here no-one even recognized my name. And then, Tom and Leila were never implicated."

"Leila!"

"Yeah, Leila. She was the third man." He chuckled heartily.

I felt the sinking sensation return to my stomach and my legs turned to a gelatinous substance of some kind. I looked silently at the man before me who had undergone such a metamorphosis in twelve years. From a seething lean, overwrought fellow of impeccable grooming and intense singleness of purpose had emerged this great hairy bear of a mountain-man in blue denim overalls and plaid workshirt. There was no trace of tension in this robust, jolly character. And here he was, open in discussing the very subject I thought would be taboo between us, that had been responsible for the long years of silence. It had hung so heavily over me for so long and now I realized that to him it was simply a long-ago event, a milestone from his past he could now joke about. It left me feeling disoriented, my whole sense of reality had been given a sudden acute twist.

"Come on in son." Again the crinkly crow's feet around the expressive blue eyes. "I can see we've got some catching up to do."

I followed the broad grey tartan shirt and shoulder-length hair up the steps and entered the front door which had been standing open. Immediately inside was a square entrance-way constructed to close off the door to the bedroom and to provide access to the other room formed when the second cabin was attached. Through the bedroom door I glimpsed a pine bed covered with a plain green patchwork quilt, a matching pine dresser, and along the opposite wall under the window a large book-case filled with books. The floor was carpeted and someone had wainscotted the walls and painted it a deep green. We turned right into the second room which served as kitchen and sitting room. Along the rear wall stood a refrigerator in the inside corner and then a white countertop with aluminum sink directly under the window. I could see a weathered board addition extending out from the corner of the building, accessed through a narrow door in the right-hand corner. The room also contained a large wood-burning range, with a white enamelled back and warming closet above, this about the centre of the wall directly opposite. A rocking chair stood to the side, next to the hot water reservoir, and an antique pine settle with a patchwork-covered pad stood under the front window. At either end of it stood a large black stereo speaker, one of which doubled as a plant stand, supporting a large fern-like plant I couldn't identify and protected from accidental water spillage by an aluminum pie plate. In the center of the room stood a dark rectangular wooden table surrounded by four chairs, all with arms and rounded back supports, the kind you often see in taverns and brasseries in Quebec. Along the interior wall, to the left of where we had entered stood another book-shelf, this one built to the ceiling and containing more books, stereo components, a wooden box, some coffee tins and assorted bric-a-brac.

I surveyed the room slowly, drinking in the feel of it, the atmosphere of this man's private space. It was a sparse room, unadorned and not spacious, yet completely functional, warmly inviting and definitely complete. One needed nothing more. I strode to the door leading to the screened porch. It contained a white painted round wooden table on which were salt and pepper shakers and a coal-oil lamp. A modern gas range stood against the wall near the corner of the house. I stood gazing toward the road.

"Have a seat out there" he called and I heard him rustling beer bottles in the refrigerator..

"Glass?"

"No thanks."

He left the kitchen bearing four long-necked bottles, two in each hand. He placed two in the center of the table, twisted the caps off the others and passed one over to me. I pulled out a chair next to the wall, turned it sideways and sat. He did likewise.

"Who reads all the books?" I wondered aloud. "Don't tell me you're becoming studious in your old age."

"I like to read," and then in mock testiness, "And, I will remind you, I am only forty-nine! Besides, most of those aren't mine, they belong to my friend. Clara lives here with me, at least most of the time. You'll meet her later. I assume you're staying awhile; a few days I hope."

"I didn't know how you were set up here, so I left it open. I'll just call my friends in Vancouver and tell them what's happening. I'm not starting for home until next Monday so we'll have lots of time."

"You'll have to wait till Clara gets back with my truck to call. The phone's in it." He raised his eyebrows and turned down the corners of his mouth in an expression that said "What can you do?"

I smiled inwardly. "That's my old man; Marcel Marceau. You can read every thought on his face." I could never picture him as being devious enough, having the duplicity, the bravado to calculate, engineer and carry out such a daring plan as he had, all the while performing his duties as a minor figure in the very security system he intended to breach. How had it happened? Surely this fellow opposite me now would never have been suspected of such treachery, yet he must have one hell of a poker face in his repertory of expressions. I watched him take a large mouthful of beer, holding the bottle between large thumb and two forefingers and allowing it to splash, blub, blub, blub into his mouth before compressing his lips pensively and swallowing.

"Guess this seems primitive, compared to your Toronto lifestyle … no phone, no power … an outhouse …," his voice trailed off reflectively, then, "we have cold running water though, comes down off the hill, free of charge, and time is something we have plenty of, so it isn't so important to be able to turn a tap and have instant hot water."

"You don't appear to be suffering any," I countered. "In fact, in just physical appearance you look damn prosperous."

"Not prosperous son, just happy. At my age needing a haircut doesn't look cool or rebellious; just poor. But you're right. I've all I ever wanted here, and for the past ten years I've had no long-range plans, I just go along from day to day, enjoying my good fortune, and sometimes chuckling to myself over how it all came about."

We chattered and laughed and drank the afternoon away, he getting up twice to fetch beer from the refrigerator, not that I tried to keep up with him, as his new size seemed to have conferred upon him a new and enlarged capacity. We talked of my career in Toronto as a copywriter for magazine ads, of all the entertainment life there (of which he knew more than one would expect of such an obvious rustic), of my years at university, and how I had accomplished it independently of any family support during the years of silence between us. He told me he felt very proud of those accomplishments, and I could see the sincerity in his eyes. I bragged a little after that, and told him about the university magazines I had edited, articles written and manuscripts (as yet unpublished) completed and submitted to publishers. At about five o'clock he got up and lifted the largest kettle I had ever seen from the gas stove and took it into the house. I heard him, filling it at the sink and he returned to place it on the stove and turned the burner on full. He disappeared again and this time re-appeared with a bag of potatoes and a piece of newspaper. Spreading this on the table before him he took a red jack-knife from his pocket and the peelings began to drop swiftly in long strands onto the paper until there were twelve naked tubers ready for the pot. He folded up the paper and took it inside, returning with an enamel pot partly filled with water. The potatoes were dropped into this and the pot was placed to the side of the table.

"Are we going to eat all those?" I observed quietly.

"No, some are for breakfast."

He explained to me various innovations and gadgets by which they (meaning he and Clara, about whom I was growing increasingly curious), enjoyed many modern comforts, all without the benefit of hydro electricity or extensive plumbing. I was directed at one point to the "washroom" to which the directions were: "Out the back door, down the alley-way in the woodshed, door on the left at the end". To my surprise I found this to be whitewashed inside and decorated with humorous clippings and political cartoons, which had been pasted to the walls. A double hung window with a screen ventilated the little room.

"What do you think of our modern facilities?" he asked in a smart-alecky tone and with a couple of lifts of his eyebrows.

"Surprisingly clean," I said seriously, then with a grin, "and entertaining too."

We then began a lengthy discussion of the job he shared with Clara, Tom, and Leila, of the schedules, duties and perquisites of working together in the greenhouse operation that belonged to Clara's father, how they time-shared in order to have enough help on hand when needed but juggled hours and paychecks from one week or season to another to maximize unemployment insurance benefits and minimize income taxes. There were two periods in the year requiring lay-offs during which vacations were taken, one in early winter, just after Christmas, and the other in the summer after the spring gardening fever broke. At the present time, I learned, they were working reduced hours and so he could arrange to have Tom and Leila spell them off for a few days. I couldn't recall ever spending three full days with my father in my entire life! I reflected on this as he rose and made yet another trip to the bathroom, and while he was gone a green half-ton entered the yard, parked beside my car and a dark-haired woman stepped onto the running board. She reached into the truck-box and retrieved a laundry basket, piled full and neatly tucked down with a towel on top upon which lay a bottle of bleach and a box of detergent. She shifted the bulky load with ease under one muscular arm and walked briskly toward the house. She looked curiously at my car while passing and I saw her remark the Ontario plate. She was dressed much like the old man, in faded plaid workshirt and jeans, except hers fit more tightly and revealed a full-figured muscular build. As she neared the house I realized she was very pretty, perhaps Italian-looking, with dark hair and eyes, and though older than me, several years younger than my father. She glanced at me quickly and entered the house. She must have taken the laundry into the bedroom because it was several minutes before I heard her greet Dad in the kitchen as he returned.

"Hi."

"Hi, Rodger's here."

"Your Rodger?" Surprise registered clearly in the question.

They appeared in the doorway, she standing shyly under his arm and both smiling broadly.

"He arrived about one o'clock … we drank all the beer," he added sheepishly.

"Oh well, we've lots of tea, but you'll have no beer until Thursday now," she smirked wickedly, as though the subject of his beer-drinking was a familiar subject of repartee.

"Rodger, I'm so glad you came! I thought we'd never meet! You know, your father is so stubborn he would never phone or write, although Tom often encouraged him to. He really thought you wanted nothing to do with him you know, after the 'fiasco' as he calls it."

"I know. And I thought he didn't want to see me" I replied, then quickly added, "but we've had a great afternoon, and have quite caught up on each other's news. I must say you two have an idyllic spot here." I was by this time standing and she gripped my extended hand in a firm solid handshake, just as a man would.

"Nice to meet you at last."

She began to clear away the mess from the table, grasping two handfuls of beer bottles and chattering animatedly all the while about how they must take me to their favourite trout pool to fish, and to see the greenhouse operation at her parents' farm; how I could stay in one of the spare cabins, for as long as I wanted, provided I didn't mind sharing accommodation with a couple of mice, and how she would have to take fresh blankets down there for they got damp if left while the cabin wasn't in use; but if I'd rather I could stay with her parents, there was plenty of room and her mother would want all the latest news from Toronto. My father leaned back on the hind legs of his chair and with his hands laced behind his head beamed fondly at her while she kept up this amiable commentary. Her immediate acceptance and enthusiasm made me feel as though I had known her for years. She soon had the potatoes rinsed and on the stove and was deftly slicing cold roast meat onto a platter.

I learned at dinner that Clara's people had come west from Toronto in the mid-sixties, her father had operated a small bulldozer for a landscape firm in Vancouver for several years before gambling on the fledgling greenhouse business, about an hour and a half drive from the city. The family venture thrived until there were now six people dependant on it for their livelihood, all of whom shared the same enthusiasm and pleasure in producing seedlings and holiday flowers for the Vancouver market.

Finally, as we sat back with steaming mugs of strong tea, I ventured carefully, "Dad, did any of those reporters or writers ever get in touch with you at the time they were hounding me on the telephone?"

"Yes, I got some letters, and there were two visits at the detention centre that I didn't know the names of, so I just refused to accept them. You know, you're only allowed two a week so you don't waste any. I wasn't interested in talking to any writers; I was still very bitter about how things fell apart. Today, of course everyone's forgotten about it, and my conviction didn't really create much interest. The big story was over by then".

"Would you tell it to me? I mean, it would be a great story, even better now that time has blurred everything … for posterity, if for no other reason. I'll write it up, in your own words to the best of my ability, and you can authorize it, or not, when it's completed."

He said nothing in reply, so I let the matter drop. I knew he hadn't forgotten though, and after dark when he and I walked up the lonely road with an armload of blankets and a lantern to the cabin which I was to use during my stay, he volunteered quietly. "About that story, I guess you can have it. It can't hurt anyone now, and who knows? Maybe you'll have some luck with it."

I organized a record of our conversations and the material from many question-and-answer sessions held over the following three days. Whenever I had a few minutes alone, and faithfully before bedtime each night I wrote notes of what I had learned that day and tried to be as true to his vocabulary and manner of speech as I could. The completion and re-writing took six months, working on and off, and in the end the old man gave his whole-hearted approval.

The following pages then, recount the story of the great "fiasco", as told to me by E. Frank Wilson in the summer of 1988.

CHAPTER TWO

Frank was in a sultry mood the morning he first met Tom McDermott. They were running late already, and would lose more time by hitting the morning rush-hour traffic. Being on a tight schedule as they always were in the armoured car service, it would mean curtailing or perhaps missing their customary morning coffee break. The usual procedure was to leave early enough to beat the traffic, get out of the city and then pull into a truck stop to have coffee before the first pick-up opened its doors. The earlier they arrived, the longer the coffee break. It doesn't sound like much, but to get out of the back of that truck for a half-hour and talk to some strange faces was a break from routine that Frank relished. Besides, halfway through someone had to go out to the truck, sit in the driver's seat and let the driver come in for his coffee. The guard and the messenger took turns doing this on alternate days. Frank particularly looked forward to coffee break on Mondays because there was a waitress he liked there, who always seemed to work the end of the counter where they sat. There were other regular customers there at the same time, but he liked to think she was particularly friendly to him; no big romance in his mind (she said she was married to a local farmer and lived nearby), but she was a happy person, joyful sort of and always had a sunny smile for everyone and laughed heartily at the jokes and jibes the fellows directed at her. That half-hour was probably the brightest spot in Frank Wilson's whole week.

Anyway, here it was Monday and they were already twenty minutes late and Frank was steaming. The new man was still in the branch manager's office, with the door closed, discussing God knew what.

"Funny God-damn thing," he fumed, "schedules are all-important until that fat wind-bag starts talking."

François the driver took a final puff on his cigarette and said nothing. He threw the butt on the floor under the truck.

"Fatso will see that after we leave and have a fit", Frank reflected with satisfaction.

"No coffee this morning," said François in his heavy French-Canadian accent.

The two men had worked together in the same truck for four years and liked each other well. François was the most taciturn man Frank had ever known and never seemed to get lonely driving all alone up front all day, yet he was good company to go out with on a Friday night. Most everyone off the job called him Frank, but between themselves he was François to avoid confusion and because Frank had a better claim to the name.

"Don't remind me," Frank growled.

At last the door opened and a slightly-built blond-haired kid stepped out. The manager followed.

"Frank, François, meet your new guard. His name is Tom McDermott."

"How are you?" François shook his hand.

Frank looked him up and down and nodded curtly.

"Let's go." He gestured with his arm toward the open cargo door of the armoured truck and the kid climbed in. Wilson got in after him and closed the doors leaving the branch manager, George Wells, beaming benignly after them.

"What the hell is he looking so jovial about this morning?" he asked the kid, although he knew full well that the manager relished his little pep-talks to the rookies. Everybody else ignored him for the most part, unless arguing about their hours or overtime pay, or refusing to volunteer for extra duty. He in turn retaliated by re-arranging the duty roster to punish those who "undermined his authority", or "showed no respect for regulations". François and Frank were senior to him, and had been with the company a long time before he arrived from head office, and so they intimidated him, and they knew it. Anyway, he liked to get the rookies aside and give them his patronizing advice on the importance of rules, schedules, and good grooming; to tell them how he had worked his way up from a guard and why it always paid to volunteer when needed because the most conscientious employees were considered first for the more responsible duties, meaning layover trips to Toronto with lots of overtime money, and other little perks.

The kid grinned. "He was telling me how I should get my hair cut, and keep my boots polished and be a credit to the uniform." In this last phrase he mimicked the branch manager exactly: perfect pronunciation in what Frank called that "silly overdone cultured Toronto accent," and the inflection in his voice was George Wells to-a-tee. Their laughter broke the ice and took the edge off Frank's temper.

"Frank Wilson." He thrust his hand at the younger man.

"Tom McDermott," he answered and dropped a rough calloused hand into Frank's. The two sat on the seats opposite one another and as the truck began to roll Frank surveyed his new guard coolly. He leaned back, pulled off his clip-on tie and loosened his collar. As he began to half-roll his sleeves he watched the kid begin to do the same.

"You must have thought that was a hoot, him lecturing you on appearance after handing you a used shirt that doesn't fit right," he observed, beginning already to feel somewhat conspirational. The rookie was older than he had expected. Usually the university students hired for the summer were just over the minimum age of twenty-one. Tom was twenty-six or seven, and had none of the innocent look of other student part-timers Frank had seen. His blond hair was long, really long for a uniform job, and he had one of those droopy moustaches like a Mexican cartoon character. He had a funny direct way of gazing right into your face when speaking too, that gave him a no-nonsense attitude.

"This guy's been around," Frank thought. "I must have heard wrong," he stated, "I thought you were a summer student replacement."

"I am," Tom replied and went on to explain how he had returned to school the previous autumn at his wife's insistence after knocking around at several dead-end jobs since their remarriage five years earlier. From short order cook to auto body painter, he had learned enough about a number of trades to know he didn't want to grow old at any of them. His wife had kept at her same job on a high-tech assembly line since high school graduation. They had no children, which left them free to "ride" with friends on weekends. By "ride" Frank assumed he meant motorcycles, which explained his appearance, and maybe some of his attitude as well. He began to suspect that Fatso had set him up, had deliberately assigned him this "square peg" so he would be put in the difficult position of having to make him conform. As courier, and therefore officer in charge of the unit, he was responsible for the appearance of the entire crew. Somehow he didn't think the hair was that length because Tom didn't have the price of a haircut. He finally asked the question he knew was in the other's mind.

"You gonna get it cut?" he ventured.

"No," he stated matter-of-factly.

"I was afraid you were going to say that."

"Look, Frank, we all have the right to wear our hair any way we want to. Nobody has the right to tell us to alter our appearance to suit their preferences. Now I can do this job with my hair long or short, and I don't intend to cut it for this lousy four-buck-an-hour job. They didn't tell me at the student placement office about this, they said clean and well-groomed; and I'm clean and well groomed. I figure that's the end of it."

"It's the end of it as far as I'm concerned, but I'm going to have to back you up to the brass, and I'm not sure if when you take a uniform job, regardless of the pay, that you shouldn't expect to have to become uniform to some degree yourself."

They said no more about it and Frank got up and looked out the rear window.

"Hey, we just passed our coffee shop," he exclaimed. He stepped quickly to the intercom. "François, what about our coffee break?"

"If we stop for coffee now we're going to be late Frank," the voice crackled through the little metal box.

He stabbed his finger irritably into the "talk" button. "Fuck it. Turn around. If we hadn't been held up this morning we wouldn't be stuck in 'traffic' right now would we?" he lied. He felt the truck slow and then turn right. They made several more turns and then pulled into the parking lot at the truck stop. Tom and Frank stepped to the back door and Frank twisted the lever downward and the heavy door swung open. They climbed down and entered the restaurant. As they approached the counter Frank noticed the little waitress wasn't there. There was a new girl working her end of the counter. He stopped by the cash register.

"Three coffees to go, two cream no sugar." Then to Tom "How about yours?"

"Regular" he replied.

The waitress selected three large-size paper cups and prepared three coffees, pressing the plastic lids down firmly with the palm of her hand. She handed one to Tom and set the others on the cabinet-top in front of Frank. "Sixty cents."

He placed two quarters and a dime on the glass, picked up the coffee and turned to leave.

"You guys are in a hurry this morning," she called after them.

"Yeah, we're late" as the door swung open.

"Change your mind Frank?" said François as he opened the armoured door to receive the coffee held out toward him.

"Yeah, might as well stay on schedule if we can. It's not as though we're overworked and need the rest."

François grinned as he poked a hole in the lid with his ballpoint. He lit a cigarette and then turned back into driving position, reaching for the door handle as he did so. The two men waited for the familiar latch click as Francois activated the solenoid relay, then Frank opened the door with his key.

"By the time we finish these, we'll be at our first stop, Tom."

Tom slammed the back door and then leaned his shoulder against it so he could watch out the rear window and brace himself as the truck moved. He stabbed the lid of his coffee cup as he had seen Francois do and began to sip carefully at it.

"How long you been doing this Frank?"

"I started as a driver part-time, then worked as a guard full-time for seven years. I've been a courier three years now. I guess ten altogether, ten and a half. I was a milkman before that, had Wednesdays off, so I used to work one day a week here to make some extra money. Finally got fed up with the dairy, being outside in all kinds of weather, getting stuck in winter and never making any money. I only made sixty bucks a week, and there was so much credit you never knew when you would see it. Driving one of these seemed a better job, nice and warm and safe in an armoured cab, but then when I started with the company it wasn't as a driver but as a guard. It paid an extra thirty cents an hour. Couriers get a little more, on the theory that it's more dangerous, and besides there's more responsibility. You, as a part-timer, are right at the bottom of the pay-scale; that's why you might feel some antagonism from some of the guys.

It's hard to bargain for benefits when so many of the employees are part-time. Most have army pensions or full-time jobs and so they can afford to work for low wages. We see it as unfair competition and the company really takes advantage of it. Another thing, you can't get some of these part-timers during the holidays because they have other jobs as cops or firemen and can afford to take the summer off. That's why they hire students; they work cheap, are available all summer when most people want their vacation, and they don't get involved with union affairs. You a union man Tom?"

"No, well … maybe I am at that. I never worked anywhere that had a union, but maybe that's what makes me sympathetic to the labour movement. I worked in an auto body shop one time where we got paid a weekly salary. It was hard dirty work with all the dust and smoke from the welding … bad fumes too. We often had to work late to finish a job but we never got overtime for it. The boss said he'd give us the time back later when we needed it, but everybody said you never got it back. We didn't always get our holidays either, if there was a holiday during the week, sometimes we had to work Saturday to make it up. People working in union shops got twice the money we did for the same work, and they got all their benefits too, but you couldn't tell that to any of those guys. They said if the union came in they'd be expected to produce more with fewer men and there would be lay-offs. The boss told them that of course, but they figured he was infinitely more wise than some smart-mouthed kid like me, and had their best interests at heart. I finally packed it in when he told us to buy new coveralls. He'd decided we were all going to wear the same colour; thought it would look better … at our own expense of course! I told him to stick his job in his ass, and I demanded the three days overtime he owed me or I'd go to the labour board. I was lucky I guess, my old lady could keep us going until I got another job, but a lot of those guys are still there, or in places just like it." Tom became increasingly excited as he warmed to this subject, and his voice had risen slightly in volume and pitch.

"He's a good speaker," Frank thought, "interesting," but their conversation was interrupted by the truck stopping for the first delivery.

Frank rolled down his sleeves and put his tie on. He smoothed his hair back and put his cap squarely on his head. Tom did the same, handling the brim and therefore getting the visor all smeared with finger-prints. Frank winced inwardly when he saw the look of all that hair under his hat. He picked out the bag marked for their first delivery, verified that the seal was intact and checked it against the log book. This he had ready for signature by the manager of the small-town bank who in turn would have a sealed package ready and would require Frank's signature on the deposit slip. There were several banks in the town but they delivered to only one; other armoured car firms had won the contracts for the others. Frank took a quick look out the side window and strode to the door. Tom looked out the window on his side and followed.

"Good," Frank thought, "he took his training seriously." It wasn't much of a run they were on, and the pickups and deliveries were normally small ones. The risk of a robbery was ever-present however. "Almost all bank robberies are for peanuts," he remembered being admonished during his own training, "and when you take a couple of wise-guys who maybe aren't too bright to begin with, put guns in their hands and place them in a dangerous scary position, people tend to get shot. For peanuts!"

The door opened and Tom got out first. He nodded to the messenger, who stepped out next, the bag and aluminum-bound log book in his left hand, his right hand free, close to his weapon. Tom waited until he passed and then followed a few steps behind. A young cashier standing near the front of the bank opened the door for them and smiled a greeting. Frank walked around the counter and approached the vault, while Tom selected a position near the wall where he could watch both him and the door. He spoke quietly and in a friendly manner to the girl, "Too nice a day to have to work," or something like. He was doing things by the book and Frank remarked this to himself, impressed by the way he required no reminders on procedures, yet didn't appear obvious in what he was doing; kind of casual, yet careful too. Perhaps more common sense than memory-work, he realized.

As Frank approached him to leave, Tom stepped out in front, arrived first at the door, and then waited for his partner to pass, calm as you please. He stood to one side as Frank unlocked the doors and they got in. Frank consulted the log and marked the time, then checked the next stop; the local arena, of all places. Still, it wasn't so strange. Sometimes community groups held bingos or auction sales and had large sums of cash to be deposited which they didn't want to carry. They picked up there, then made a pick-up at the department store.

The next stop would be in another town along their route up the valley, and so they had a fifteen or twenty minute ride. They settled in and Frank leaned back and closed his eyes a moment. This guy might not be so bad to work with after all, he seemed to know the job all right, and to use his head, yet he didn't make a big deal out of the fact that he was carrying a gun or the seriousness of the work. Frank remembered his own first day on the job, and to be fair he thought Tom seemed more relaxed, had none of the appearance of a newcomer trying to get things right. As the years had passed he had learned to expect each day to be like the last, pretty much boring and eventless in spite of the nagging recognition that such boredom could be punctuated by terror at any moment. Frank thought it peculiar that he never considered the danger while he was out of the truck making a delivery and taking care of the associated paperwork. The mind seemed to block out such ideas when it had anything else to occupy it. It was during moments of quiet like this that the fear sometimes came creeping from the inner recesses of the mind — graphic images of someone shoving the muzzle of a gun into your guts and pulling the trigger. Then, and sometimes late at night when he was troubled by insomnia such scenes would intrude unbidden into the restless dark, forcing his heart and mind to race as though there were a real and present danger, far in excess of any such feelings of alarm during a real work-day.

When Frank quit his job at the dairy it had never occurred to him that the job would be frightening. He had often worked for the guard service on his day off and had become quite accustomed to his duties as a driver. A week after joining the service however the branch manager (an ex-officer from the R.C.M.P.), had summoned him to the office. He would be needed as a guard, it was explained, as part-time help preferred the driving positions. He would be paid more money and the manager would personally ensure that he got preference for overtime hours. Frank didn't argue, but he wasn't aware then how vulnerable he would feel escorting a messenger through a large crowded shopping mall. It had been so secure locked inside the cab of the armoured wagon; his only responsibility in the event of a robbery being to sound the alarm and stay put. Still, he had learned to live with it, and had subsequently been promoted to messenger, a position which carried its own added responsibility and danger. Whenever Frank's colleagues began complaining about the low pay it was always this element of danger they alluded to, yet to him it was not the most stressful part of the routine. The boredom and inactivity wore upon him inexorably. Eight or ten hours inside a locked steel box caused time to march so slowly that every lunch and coffee break was anticipated, each stop an event to be looked forward to, if only for the space of a few minutes, to pick up a cold drink at a store, or to say hello to a familiar face in a bank. Upon climbing back into that box he often felt something akin to claustrophobia; it would feel so good on a spring day just to ride with the rear doors open for once and allow a cool breeze to waft over you. There weren't even any windows one could see out of while strapped in the seats. The inactivity left his body jumpy by the end of the day so that often lying in bed at night he would begin to itch all over. The muscles of the legs would twitch, feeling as though they were about to go into spasms because the energy being pumped to them all day had not been consumed. He had developed the habit, since the beginning, of walking a brisk three or four miles each evening when the weather was fair, but this wasn't always possible, and the inactivity had a way of perpetuating itself: doing nothing all day often led to a lack of ambition in the evening as well. Listening to a radio in the truck would have helped alleviate the boredom, but was impractical from a safety standpoint and was in direct contravention of the rules. Reading was also difficult. Frank sometimes read the newspaper, but a book was impossible in the jostling, bumping heavy truck; trying to focus on the small print caused headaches. Talking with François through the armoured glass that separated them was next to impossible so Frank had only his thoughts to occupy the time, and the conversation of the guard beside him. This meant that in the selection of a steady member of the crew personality factors weighed heavily.

There were some guards that Frank had worked with that worried him from a safety point of view, he hadn't much confidence in their ability to do the right thing in an emergency. But because ninety-nine percent of the time they sat locked in the truck together, the ability to carry a conversation, mutual interests, or personal habits overshadowed security considerations in his choice. After all, didn't the company consider them all to be competent? So Frank looked for someone who would help relieve the boredom of the prison-like hours in that steel box.

In actual fact he didn't always get to choose his partner. This was done by the dispatcher, with the branch manager overseeing and often interfering in the process. Sometimes Frank had spent long months living in cramped quarters with dull, stupid, farting, uncouth people who although always in abject ignorance of the facts nevertheless held strong opinions on most everything. When he had someone he felt comfortable with he dreaded the day he would be promoted or reassigned, because he never knew who his replacement might be. The most senior employees could request certain delivery routes and there had been a number of requests for Frank's that he had managed thus far to forestall.

For this it was necessary to use François. He, being French-Canadian spoke the same language as Claude the dispatcher. This conferred on them that fellowship enjoyed by members of minority communities and especially those who enjoy a separate language. In addition, the two men belonged to the same religious fraternity: the Knights of Columbus. François would disappear into the dispatch office while Frank was completing his paperwork and some time later Claude would accompany him to the door, all smiles and brotherhood. Claude would sometimes lay it on pretty thick, for the benefit of anyone within ear-shot, with endearments like "Oui, mon Frankie", and "Bien sur, mon gars!" Anyway, for the past six months or so they had been able to prevent the appointment of a new guard to their crew, preferring to have this position change from week to week, and sometimes from day to day as part-timers filled in, rather than accept on a permanent basis some of the other possible choices.

The problem was; Wells had confronted Claude a month ago about a schedule change on their itinerary and had announced that Wilson and his buddy had been running things long enough and would damned well do as he said from now on, yet they had continued to get relief guards up until now. As Frank sat in the jiggling truck, his eyes closed, he thought he began to see the strategy. This summer fill-in: Tom McDermott, was to be part of the crew for the next three and a half months, and he had been hand-picked by Wells because he looked like a problem. After all, Frank had in the past demonstrated an inability to work with a number of people, some of whom Wells had rated rather highly. Surely this long-haired rounder would be a thorn in Wilson's side, and this time he wasn't going to have any choice in the matter. It added to the alienation and frustration he already felt about the job. Still, it looked as though Tom might work out all right, he seemed capable and his attitude, though somewhat rebellious, was something Frank could live with. If his hypothesis was correct he calculated Fatso would be making discreet inquiries as to how well he liked the new man, probably before the end of the week.

Frank chuckled aloud, thinking, "Well, if that's the game, I'll certainly never let on I'm happy with the situation. It won't hurt the kid's career any if I bitch about him a little now and then, just to screw Wells around. He doesn't intend to make this his life's work anyway."

"You say something Frank?" Tom sat up straight to face him.

"No, but I was just thinking," a sly smile played around the corners of his mouth, "boredom must tend to make you mean."

Tom thought about this a moment and then replied. "Maybe. I know my old man always said if you want to make a dog cross, tie him up."

They laughed at this construction on his father's conventional wisdom.

"Yup, it might be a good summer after all."

CHAPTER THREE

The workday passed quickly for a change and by five o'clock the truck was back at the office. François backed it carefully into the depot and they unloaded quickly, passing the sacks to the vault cashiers. They removed guns and holsters, Tom returning his to the property desk, François and Frank putting theirs in their lockers. When they had finished, François went immediately to the time clock, punched out and waved good-bye on his way out the door. Tom lingered over Frank, who was still completing paper work.

"You go ahead Tom. I still have some book work to do before I can leave. I'll see you on Wednesday." Then more quietly, he added, "It went very well today."

Tom nodded shyly at this encomium and headed for the time clock. Frank saw George Wells and one of his cronies watch him pass. They huddled together afterward, talking in low voices. He smiled secretly as his head lowered once more over the log.

Twenty minutes later he was on the freeway, nosing into the stop-wait-and-crawl traffic that was the norm at that time of day. He had experimented with every possible route to his home and had found none so quick or direct, but he often took an alternate route just to relieve the routine or to prevent overheating in very hot weather. The block where Frank lived was residential but it was on a major thoroughfare with an access ramp to the freeway just two short blocks away. The houses were all duplexes which had been constructed when the street was a rural road and before the farm property behind the ribbon of frontage lots had been developed into housing projects. Frank, his wife and seventeen-year-old son lived in the upper half of one of these. There was a shared laneway at one end of the building and Frank's kitchen was accessed by an outside stairway and landing above the lane. He arrived home a few minutes before six. His son Rodger had his bicycle turned upside down at the foot of the stairway and he was adjusting the chain.

"How's it going?" Frank asked cheerfully.

"Just fine," he replied sardonically.

"What's wrong?"

"You'll see."

"By the way. I thought I asked you to mow the grass when you got home this afternoon. It's not done."

"I don't have to do it. Mom said you were home all day tomorrow with nothing to do and you could do it. I have homework."

"But you're not doing homework, you're playing with your bicycle."

"I'm fixing it, besides you can take it up with Mom. I started to do it and she told me to shut the mower off, she was trying to rest."

Frank began to climb the stairs. "Funny," he thought, each step sounding heavily on the wooden steps, "I didn't feel this tired when I left work."

He entered the kitchen and surveyed the scene before him. The table wore the evidence of the day's activity; cereal bowls and plates lay where they had been emptied, and at one end stood a teapot, cup and saucer, accompanied by a full ashtray. The sink was piled high with dishes, pots and pans from the previous night's supper and the space of counter-top normally used to prepare meals contained the waxed paper, butter, peanut butter and so on that Rodger had used to prepare his lunch before school. Frank considered removing his shoes and then looked at the floor. He scrubbed them on the mat instead, unwilling to risk stepping on crumbs and grit in his sock feet. The television was playing loudly in the living room and he moved toward the sound. He had his uniform cap in his hand ready to be placed in the front hall closet, and as he passed the living-room door he ventured in a friendly voice, "Well, how did it go today?"

"What do you mean by that?" Diane snapped in reply.

"Oh nothing, I was just trying to make conversation," he answered, resignation in his voice, as he continued toward the cupboard.

She stood behind him in the door-way now. "No you weren't. You know what I mean you bastard. You were trying, in your sneaking weaselly way, to ask me what I did all day. Well, I'm not a slave to you, you know, and I don't take orders from you, and I don't have to justify my existence to you either. I'll clean this place up when I find the time and not when you beat around the bush and hint around that maybe I'm not doing my share around here." This was delivered in a shrill complaining tone and with hardly a pause for breath.

"No you won't. I'll do it tomorrow, like I do most other weeks on my day off. You know, if you got dressed, and took the curlers out of your hair and took a shower you might feel more like doing something during the day. What's the matter, are you sick or something?"

She thrust her face into his wide-eyed, and spat out her reply. "No, I'm not sick … you sarcastic bastard … you see, that's what I mean about you. You don't have the guts to say what's on your mind. You know I'm not sick. What you really want to know is why didn't I get busy and cook and clean and wash today like I'm supposed to be doing while you're out doing your brainless little job. You sat on your arse all day didn't you?"

The discussion, if it could be called that, had now taken a familiar turn. The fact that Frank was paid to do a job that required very little physical effort while on the other hand, Diane was expected to do menial household chores for no remuneration at all, created in her a strong resentment.

"Look, I've told you I don't know how many times, go and get a job! It's not as though we couldn't use the money. There are all kinds of do-nothing sit-around jobs out there. Go and get one!"

"I had one remember? I got laid off."

"You don't call it being laid off when they hire someone else to replace you," he stated matter-of-factly, shattering the illusion that it had been somehow beyond her control that she had lost her first and only job two years previously. He knew this would result in her immediate and complete defeat and that it was cruelly hurtful to her, but he had coldly administered the blow anyway. She pushed past him and stamped heavily down the hallway to their bedroom. Frank felt mean now, as though he had punched her in the face. He and Diane quarrelled often, and knew each other's sore spots, the tender points in their egos that hurt when poked or prodded. There were other points too, he knew, that elicited anger or defensiveness; it was simply a matter of feeling mean enough or tired-and-fed-up enough to inflict the necessary jab. Frank had vulnerable spots too, but his were less easy to detect because he tried not to let on when he had been hit. This, combined with a cool ability to debate point-by-point, gave Frank an edge over Diane so that he could end an argument almost at will. Unfortunately, it also often left him feeling like an intellectual bully.

"If only she wouldn't start in on me like that! I was tiptoeing around her, for christ's sake, … as if I couldn't see how her day went."

"You're talking to yourself again," she shouted from the bedroom and he could tell by her voice she was crying. He crept into the room and sat beside her on the unmade bed.

"Look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

"You're right," she blubbered, "I got fired, I made mistakes, and I wasn't fast enough. Besides the people there didn't like me, nobody ever likes me. I don't have to be reminded."

She sat facing the mirror and was pulling curlers impatiently from her head and throwing them into a little woven basket that served as storage for them. The tears cascaded down her face. She wiped them off her chin with the back of her hand and looked balefully at him in the mirror. He placed his hands upon her shoulders.

"I didn't mean it. You are a nice person. Rodger and I love you don't we? And it wasn't your fault you were fired, perhaps you just aren't suited to that kind of job. Maybe they wanted to hire a younger person, who knows? You'll get another job, you'll see, and I'm sure you'll do just fine. Besides, we can get along the way things are. Our tastes are simple, we don't need much. Come on, don't cry."

They stood then and she wrapped her arms around his chest and placed her head under his chin. Her body shook with uncontrolled sobbing. Their quarrels often began and ended this way, with an unwarranted and unexpected attack on his dignity, manhood, pride or whatever, until some hurled insult or barb struck a nerve and he became angry and hurtful, at which point he would smash out, wanting to hurt back, destroy even, then having been verbally pummelled into submission she turned to him for comfort and compassion. These later scenes could be very tender, and after long periods of abstinence sometimes ended in lovemaking.

Rodger could be heard entering the kitchen and Frank went out to meet him.

"Where's Mom?" he demanded, his eyes wary.

"In the bedroom, it's okay." He knew Rodger had heard the argument, had anticipated it in fact since he returned from school. He would be happy to know the air would be clear for the evening.

"Maybe he'll stay in tonight," Frank hoped without conviction. It seemed lately that the boy found every excuse to be absent when his father was home. He did his homework at the library and worked two evenings a week and Saturdays at a local hamburger restaurant, other times he said he was at the home of a friend, but Frank was never really sure where he was until he returned home after ten o'clock. He was up and gone to work before his son awoke most mornings.

"What's for supper?"

Frank felt himself tense, but answered calmly enough, "I don't know but if you'll just relax a minute I'll see what I can put together. Are you in a hurry?"

The boy didn't answer but watched as his father opened cupboard doors and examined their contents for the makings of a meal. He took out a large tin of baked beans and then checked out the refrigerator freezer. "Weiners, just the thing," he thought aloud. "How does weiners and beans sound?"

"Okay, I guess," Rodger replied over his shoulder as he disappeared down the hall. Frank knew that would be the last he would see of him until he was called for supper, and afterwards he would rise from the meal and go directly outdoors. After putting the ingredients into a saucepan on the stove Frank began his ritual of clearing the counter and restacking the dishes in the sink, which was filling with hot soapy water. When the first sink full had been washed and dried and the pots and pans were nearly completed Diane entered the room. She had combed her hair and was dressed in jeans and a blouse. Her face, though tearful, looked as if it had been washed. She smiled sheepishly, "I was going to do those after supper."

"There'll be more after supper, you'll have your chance," he stated evenly, "besides, we had nothing left to eat off of." He pulled the plug and collected dishes and cutlery from the table and piled them in the now-empty sink. He wiped the table quickly with a damp cloth and began re-setting it for the evening meal.

"Rodger, come and eat," he called out.

Rodger came and served himself from the pot, helped himself to bread and butter and began to eat quickly and silently. He rose, poured himself a large glass of milk and drank it over the sink. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and departed through the back door. Diane and her husband had just begun to eat.

"Where's he off to?" Frank inquired.

"Oh, he has something at the school, he told me about it this morning but I've forgotten. I can't keep up with his schedule, it seems he has something every night … Guess what I've decided to do?"

"I can't guess."

"I'm going to become a songwriter."

"You're what?" Frank started.

"I'm going to be a songwriter," she reiterated slowly and distinctly as though he hadn't heard her correctly the first time. "I even have a publishing company who'll buy everything I write. They send you a guitar and books to teach you how to play it, how to read music, and music paper and everything. Then they buy your songs. Lots of people have done it, even some famous country music stars started out by writing music in their homes."

"Where did you learn about this?" he enquired, mildly fascinated.

"It was in the paper." She often referred to the scandal sheets and police tabloids she purchased at the convenience store as "the papers".

"I already sent away for it today."

He stared at her, incredulous. "You mean to say you sent money away in the mail for this scam? Are you serious? How much have you wasted this time?"

"Only a hundred dollars, and I didn't waste it. I'll pay the rest in instalments. Of course after awhile I'll be making more than the payments will be, so it won't cost anything."

"I see". He fought down an urge to let himself go. "So how much is the total cost?"

"Only four hundred and ninety-five dollars and you get a guitar, an agent and everything. So you see it must be honest, otherwise how could they make any money? It's because they make it on the songs people write."

Frank buried his face in his hands and shook his head sadly. "You are absolutely fucking dangerous" he muttered in amazement. "Did you send these people a cheque? Wait a minute," he said, suddenly hopeful, "you haven't been out of the house all day. How could you have mailed a letter?"

His hopes were quickly dashed. "Rodger took it for me. he's going to take up the guitar too."

He couldn't believe it. "No wonder the little son of a bitch skinned out of here so fast after supper," he thought, "he's plenty sharp enough to recognize this for what it is, but he's doing all he can to abet her. Why does he take such delight in tormenting me?"

"Don't you realize how much five hundred dollars means to us? That's two weeks pay … before deductions. We can't afford this, even if it was a good idea, which it isn't. You're never going to learn to play that thing from a book, and you're not going to write any songs either."

"There you go, putting me down again. Why do you always feel you're so superior to everybody? You think because you earn all the money you can dole it out and make all the decisions around here. Well I have news for you, I have a right to write cheques on that account too. Remember there are two names on them!" She spat this last out emphatically and waved two fingers before his face.

"Sure you can, when there's money in the account; which there isn't, and the car insurance is due next month. Tell you what, put your financial genius to work and figure out where that money is going to come from. I thought I had it covered. Now I don't."

He threw his fork down noisily on the empty plate and left the table. He put on a windbreaker over his uniform, went down the front stairs and out the door. Jim Stanton, the downstairs neighbour, stood on the lawn with his wife's French poodle on a leash.

"How are things Frank?"

Frank managed a broad grin and replied happily, "Never better Jim." He hurried on down the drive and turned left to avoid any further pleasantries. Besides, if Jim knew Frank was out for a walk he might want to come along. He never wanted to walk very far and he had to stop every few yards to permit the dog to piss on peoples lawns, lamp-posts and shrubbery. Jim's dog was a chronic irritation for Frank, though he managed to conceal it well. The landlord deducted sixty dollars a month for the maintenance Frank performed on the property and Frank took pride in seeing the grounds well tended. The dog's urine left little dead circles all over the front lawn where they usually "walked" it, and made the area unattractive for use.

Frank began walking at a moderate pace, thinking that Jim wasn't a bad sort really, it was just that tonight his patience was already spent. He planned to cover about four and a half miles, taking a direct route to the river, then along the bicycle pathway for a mile or so, followed by a haphazard choice of quiet residential streets for the return home. He had travelled about three blocks when he heard a female voice call his name. He froze in his tracks and began to swear quietly but intensely under his breath, a long string of the most venomous invective he could piece together. He turned to watch Diane run the last half block to where he stood, arriving quite out of breath.

"Where are you going?" he demanded gruffly.

"I thought I'd come with you for a walk. What's the matter, can't you even take your wife along for a walk like a decent man? You never want to do anything with me. I haven't been out of the house all day and now you begrudge me an evening stroll. Where are you going that you don't want me to come along?"

"I'm going nowhere. Come along if you like, I don't care."

"I don't know why you're so angry Frank, I think you're just negative about everything I do. You think I'm too stupid to learn the guitar, but I'll show you. Besides I thought if Rodger took an interest in it he might stay home more. You'd like that wouldn't you? Other boys his age have musical instruments and spend a lot of time playing them."

"If Rodger had wanted a guitar he could have discussed it with me and I could have helped him to find one … for a lot less than five hundred bucks I might add. The truth is he hasn't shown any interest in music, this is just another one of your hair-brained schemes."

"There you go again, putting me down. Haven't you ever heard of trying to build up a person's ego, instead of trying to destroy their aspirations all the time? Maybe if you weren't always trying to make yourself look better and smarter than me we'd get along better, and I'd feel more like doing things for you, like making meals and housecleaning." Diane was speaking in a voice low enough that she wouldn't be overheard by someone working in their garden. Then she said more loudly. "Slow down will you, we're not in a race. Why do you have to walk so fast?"

"Because I came out here to get some exercise and work off some steam, that's why! Then you came along and expect me to slow down to your pace. Next you'll want to turn around and go home," he replied irritably. Frank placed his right hand at the back of his neck and closing his eyes began to roll his head in a circle. It was beginning to ache, just at the base of his skull. He slowed down now and they walked in silence for another two blocks before she took his arm and steered him firmly toward home. Frank made no effort to resist, his headache had begun to throb by now and any physical effort seemed to increase its intensity.

"Do I have a clean shirt for tomorrow?" he asked in a tone more curious than peremptory.

"I don't think so … I thought tomorrow was your day off."

"Well it is, but I heard they have a special in the morning to the Bank of Canada. It would mean four hours minimum, but they probably won't call me. It's been quite awhile since I got any overtime; the god-damn part-timers are getting it all. I think they'd like to run that company entirely on part-time help."

"Well I don't think it's fair. Some of those men have good jobs already. This is just pocket-money for them. I don't understand why your company even wants them, they're not making a career out of it like you are."

"That's why they want them dear", he explained in a patronizing manner. "They don't need much money, no-one can live on what a part-timer earns per hour, but because they already have another income they aren't pushing for higher wages. Remember old Joe Quinn? He retired six weeks ago and they haven't created another full-time position to replace him yet. I don't think they intend to either."

"If they're getting rid of full-time people as you say, do you think they might get rid of you eventually?" She looked worried.

"They can't fire me. Not without 'just cause', but you can be sure if they ever get anything on me I'll be gone pretty quick. There's nothing to worry about," he added quickly, "but knowing they're just waiting for their oldest employees to quit doesn't leave a fellow with very loyal feelings toward his employer. I guess I'm getting fed up with my job," he admitted. "Remember when I first went to work there? The pay was pretty good compared to other jobs, but we've been losing ground steadily for the past few years, now there are more part-timers than ever, and we've won no new benefits like other labour groups; we're too busy trying to hang on to what we've got. I'd quit, but to start at the bottom somewhere else would mean even less money, and anyway who wants a thirty-seven year old guy with no trade?"

"Well, don't worry, maybe soon I'll be making lots of money."

He didn't answer, thinking, "Jesus, if she brings up that songwriting bullshit again I think I may lose it right here on the sidewalk."

They turned into the laneway and walked toward the kitchen steps in the gathering darkness. Frank couldn't wait to take the pain tablets for his headache and lie down in a dark room. That was the only thing that relieved the pounding in his head, and when it occurred at work there was nothing he could do about it, no remedy seemed to work in the steady banging and jostling of the truck. He chased four aspirins down with a glass of water and retired to the bedroom to undress and lie down. First however, he did something that struck him as odd. He made the bed, pulling the sheets tight and plumping up the pillows, placing them on top of the blankets where he had folded the top of the sheet down over. Then he turned down one corner of the bed and got into it. This was the kind of fastidious behaviour that drove Diane crazy. He could no sooner leave that bed unmade than get into a dirty one. He would press uniform shirts and trousers that she said were wash-and-wear; meant to be placed on hangers as soon as they were taken from the clothes dryer. He insisted that all members of the family remove their shoes in the house, yet if he detected any dirt on the floor he would leave his own boots on. While Diane had at one time tried to meet his expectations, she no longer bothered, accusing him of being neurotic and unreasonable. Frank piled his soiled clothes on top of a hamper that was filled to overflowing and in less than ten minutes he was asleep.

He awoke some time later feeling refreshed, the headache gone. He listened intently for a moment, not hearing the television which should have been on, as Diane had not yet come to bed. He looked at the luminous dial on the clock behind his head. Four-thirty! He knew now what had happened. Diane had fallen asleep in front of the t.v. again. It happened often enough, Frank would go to bed early to be up at six, while Diane found she couldn't sleep at that hour, having risen after Rodger left for school, at some time between nine and eleven.

Frank switched on the lamp at the headboard shelf and padded barefoot in his underpants to the livingroom. The television was emitting a low whistle. He turned it off. Diane started up from her semi-prone position on the couch.

"Hey, I was watching that."

"Watching what?"

"The movie."

"The movie has been over for hours. It's time to go to bed." He turned off one of two lights still burning.

She yawned, stretched and finally rose and left the room. Frank extinguished the remaining light and followed. Diane was undressing.

"I suppose you're all wide-awake and bushy-tailed after going to bed at eight-thirty" she accused him crossly.

"Wide awake," he countered with a broad grin.

"Well," she snorted, angry now, "I hope you don't have any ideas that include me. I'm tired you know; it's four-thirty in the morning. I know what's on your mind, you're so selfish sometimes!" She turned her back to him, and reaching behind, unhooked her bra. Frank watched her, his hands laced together on the pillow behind his head. She donned a heavy cotton nightgown, slipped quickly between the covers, and with her back toward him proceeded to resume her interrupted slumber.

Frank reached above his head and turned off the light. He knew it was pointless to attempt any further sleep. His normal wake-up time was a little more than an hour away, and he'd already slept eight hours. He stared wide-eyed at the ceiling; alert, frustrated, angry, his hands clenched into fists. "I'm quite aware it's four-thirty in the morning," he reflected resentfully, "but now what the hell am I supposed to do for two hours? Maybe it is a little thoughtless to expect sex at this hour, but it has been three weeks, besides it seems like every night we get maneuvered into a position like this, a sort of 'how could you under these circumstances' type of situation."

Frank could remember a time when sex hadn't been such an overpowering urge in him, when he had a more take-it-or-leave-it attitude, but Diane and he had been more affectionate then, so maybe he hadn't needed it so much. Certainly there had been no question of sex before their marriage. Frank began to realize later that this had meant no real hardship for Diane. Although she had once loved him, the idea of sex with him had never held any strong allure, indeed it was unattractive to her almost to the point of revulsion. She had tried at first to accommodate him, but as they grew more accustomed to one another she became more honest about it. She resented the forced intimacy of marriage, the sharing of a bed, and a bathroom, the picking up of smelly socks and dirty underwear, and a dozen other routine tasks that spoke of close human contact.

Diane had never been denied much as a girl. Her parents, somewhat late in life, had raised one child and had provided her with every amenity, requesting no assistance with household chores in return. Unlike Frank who had grown up in a tiny war-time home with five siblings, and parents to whom poverty and large families were as natural as rain, Diane and her folks shared a spacious bungalow and two incomes. Frank, having been the oldest, was well-used to the intimacy that a crowded home engenders. He had changed his little sisters' diapers, cleaned up their vomit, and washed huge stacks of dishes as he grew; while Diane's only responsibility was to make her bed and place the laundry hamper in the hall on Tuesdays, a task she routinely forgot. She found Frank's home crowded, and thought it smelled disgustingly of human habitation, but of course she made no mention of it at the time, and Frank had remained unaware of her feelings.

"I should have foreseen all this," he mused, angry at himself. He recalled two incidents from their high-school romance that to an older or more experienced person, would have held ominous portent.

The first time he had tried to French-kiss her she had jerked away, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth frantically; with a grimace she blurted, "Don't stick your tongue in my mouth, I don't like that."

As time went on she became more receptive to his attentions, but only at times, and he had never been able to predict when those times might be. Once during the excitement of a long kiss he had placed his hand on her deliciously nylon-encased kneecap and had had it roundly smacked in response. The subject of sex had never been discussed in any but a peripheral manner, but Frank had assumed, that like his parents, and he supposed, Diane's parents too, they would enjoy a regular and satisfying sex life after marriage. "Yeah right," he growled, "and I'll have a regular and satisfying life after death too!"

When Frank realized that his newly aroused biological drives were to be consistently denied, resentful arguments had ensued. These grew increasingly bitter, until the criticisms and recriminations of heated debate had cooled all passion for one another, spilling over even into the quiet times until a mutual apathy and low regard came to overshadow their lives. There were other problems as well, but none so demoralizing or insistent.

If he could only get laid once in awhile, anywhere, it would be easier to overlook Diane's stupidity, lack of effort and inability to cope with her daily responsibilities. It would put him in a better mood, he thought. "We might even get to be friends again," he raged silently, "and stop this relentless bickering. Oh, I am so sick of it all." And so he was, sick of it: emotionally drained, psychologically damaged, and now with the recurring headaches, perhaps physically ill as well. The need for companionship was becoming the most powerful underlying force in his life. He yearned for the feel of a loving suppliant body next to his; his need was ever-present, but at times like this, having just seen his wife's body naked before him he felt an insistent tugging in his loins which being unattended, would soon give way to a dull ache in the groin, spreading through out the entire pelvis and into the small of his back.

"They say the needs for food and shelter are more primal than the need for sex … but if I could get laid right now I think I'd rather be like the tom-cat, getting home after three days away, half-starved and suffering from exposure." He rose carefully from the bed, and taking his housecoat from a hook behind the door, tiptoed silently from the room.

CHAPTER FOUR

When Rodger entered the kitchen at seven o'clock to put on the kettle for his breakfast he was startled by the silent presence of his father at the end of the table. He wasn't doing anything, just sitting, an empty coffee mug before him.

"Hi."

"Hi, what time did you get in last night?"

"Ten o'clock, same as always. Kettle hot?"

"Probably not. I made this awhile ago."

"Must have been quite awhile. It's stone cold now. What time did you get up?"

"Around five. I couldn't sleep."

Rodger filled the kettle at the tap and placed it on the large front burner. He turned it on and left the room, headed for the shower. A sudden thought occurred to Frank, "Rodger?"

The blond head re-appeared around the corner of the kitchen wall. "You rang?"

"Yeah, I was wondering, if you don't have anything after school, maybe you and I could do something; play pool maybe," he added as the idea came to him.

"I don't play pool. Besides, I work tonight, remember?" The head disappeared and Frank heard the bathroom door close. The shower began to hiss. Frank sighed audibly, "That's right, I forgot," he said aloud to the empty room.

When the kettle boiled Frank took three eggs from the refrigerator and placed them gently in a saucepan. He poured the boiling water over them until they were almost covered. Immediately one of the eggs began to make a faint whistling noise, emitting a tiny column of bubbles where the shell had cracked.

"Damn. I forgot, supposed to start with cold water." He placed the pan on the stove and stood watching it impatiently until the water began to boil once more, then he noted the time. He began to search the fridge for the remainder of Rodger's lunch. Finding no fruit, he packaged a handful of raisins, carefully folding the waxed paper over to seal them completely. Next he found some graham crackers in a cupboard, and after coating them liberally with strawberry jam, wrapped them face-to-face in another neat parcel. He removed the eggs from the heat and filled the pan with cold water, and placed it under the faucet where the water could trickle slowly into it. Frank pulled several plastic containers and bags from the refrigerator and examined them, throwing much of it directly into the garbage. He found a wilted celery, and discarded most of it, keeping the heart, and salvaged enough of an aged lettuce to garnish the boy's sandwiches. By the time Rodger re-entered the kitchen Frank had completed the egg salad and was wrapping sandwiches.

"Coffee's in the cup there, just pour in the hot water. Toast'll be ready in a minute … I made your lunch: egg salad!"

"Gee, thanks Dad. I usually just take peanut butter, or sometimes I buy my lunch in the cafeteria. I really like your egg salad." He smiled brightly at his father for the first time Frank could remember in a long time.

While the boy was seated at the table, happily eating his breakfast, Frank showered and shaved and then stepped quickly across the hall to the bedroom. He quietly searched out clean socks and underwear, then opened the closet door to find his blue jeans and a shirt. When he did this, he dislodged several board games that had been piled carelessly atop some blankets on the top shelf and had subsequently slid down until they were precariously balanced between the shelf and the closet door. Frank reacted instantly to the impending disaster, scrabbling helplessly, trying to catch the boxes as they tumbled to the floor, but they landed with a clatter, the Checkers game bursting at two corners and noisily scattering tiles in all directions. Diane jumped upright in the bed, and upon comprehending the situation, turned on Frank with all the caustic vindictive she could muster. Frank hadn't time to compose any kind of a reply, the attack had come so quickly on the heels of the accident, but as Diane showed no sign of relenting in her angry tirade, he slowly began to rally, his temper taking over control. His fists clenched, his arms bowed up slightly at his sides, as he glared at her, his face reddening with his developing rage. He spun on his heel and took three long strides toward the bedroom window. Grasping the curtains at the center one in each hand he threw them open in a single violent sweeping movement. Sunlight streamed into the room, capturing in the air the cloud of dust he had disturbed in the material, and creating oblique bars of illuminated particles which, as the cloud grew, extended further into the room.

"Now, if you'd get out of that fucking bed, and get some fucking work done today, maybe you won't be such a fucking night-owl this evening! he bellowed. "And while we're at it, are you so useless you can't go to the store and get a few groceries?"

Diane flinched every time he used the course acronym, delivered at the full of this lungs. It was one she found particularly offensive and Frank used it rarely, but he relished the use of it here, enunciating it clearly, repeating it for emphasis as though slapping her with it. Diane's face adopted a haughty expression of contempt, and administering a final withering sneer upon the hapless Frank, crossed the hall, loudly locking the bathroom door behind her. He found his jeans and pulled them on angrily, the legs snapping into place, and flinging his shirt over his shoulder, returned to the kitchen. Rodger was nowhere to be seen, and piled neatly on the kitchen counter were the careful packages Frank had prepared for his lunch.

Frank put his arms into the sleeves of his shirt, left it unbuttoned and went in search of his boots. He dropped them onto the porch floor and having stepped into them without lacing them, clumped hollowly down the kitchen stairs. When he reached the bottom step he sat down and slowly tied the heavy work boots he wore when working in the garden. He sat motionless for some time, pondering the morning's events. The incident involving Rodger's lunch bothered him most, discouraged him, and would create a pall over the entire day. The quarrel with Diane was nothing unusual; though the swearing was and had probably been a mistake. It had given Frank some momentary satisfaction but would result in several days of frosty silence from his wife.

This morning Frank had felt a minor break-through with his son, a softening in the boy's normally cool attitude toward him, and had hoped a rapprochement of sorts might be possible. He had seen on Rodger's face a warmth not usually there, and had hoped to build further upon it. Surely as the boy grew older he would begin to see his home in a clearer light, and recognize much of his mother's behaviour and attitude as aberrant. He would become less likely to side with her, avoiding Frank as a natural consequence of being forced to choose sides in the constant conflict. Frank felt it was unnatural that the boy was so little influenced by his father, and believed he had so much to pass on, if only they could spend more time together. Now of course, the small gain he had felt this morning was gone, ruined. Rather than sit down to the lunch Frank had so carefully prepared for him the boy would have nothing at all. Frank hoped he had pocket money, or else he might go hungry.

He looked at his watch: almost eight. School started at nine. Rodger would be somewhere on the school grounds no doubt. Frank returned to the kitchen, packed the lunch in a brown paper sack and returned to the garden. The school was ten or twelve blocks away, just over a mile; it would make a good walk for a fine spring morning, and the exercise would take the edge off the tension that was beginning to mount in him. He would feel much better knowing Rodger had that lunch.

Frank covered the distance quickly, stretching his long lean legs and feeling the first dull pleasurable burning sensation of the brisk exercise. His heartbeat quickened and his breathing deepened as he swung his arms to the steady rhythm of the heavy boots and enjoyed the first deep draughts of fresh air in several days. The walk last night had not satisfied him, had further frustrated him in fact, and this errand to the high school acted as a safety valve, drawing off the volatile pressures created by the hopeless, inalterable situation that held him.

As he approached the school he searched for the red shirt he knew Rodger was wearing. There weren't many students about yet and it should have been easy to spot. Perhaps he was inside the building already. As Frank approached the heavy plate glass doors he could see no-one in the lobby or in the hallway immediately beyond. He would have to deliver it upstairs to his "home" room, and if Rodger wasn't there he could leave it with someone. What was it? Room 216? It was on the second floor anyway, he would recognize it when he saw it. He had visited it one evening before Christmas to view Rodger's science experiment: a prize winner. At the top of the stair he turned left and recognized the familiar laboratory benches through the third door he approached on his left. The teacher, whom Frank had never met, stood at the chalkboard copying from a notebook in his hand. As Frank entered the young man completed this task and turned to find him standing in the doorway.

"Are you looking for someone?" he said, not unkindly.

Frank realized suddenly what an impression he must make on a stranger, dressed as he was in his gardening clothes. He needed a haircut too, something that made him feel increasingly self-conscious as he grew older and his hair slowly thinned out.

"He probably thinks I'm a delivery-man or something," he realized glumly. "Yes, I'm looking for my son, Rodger Wilson. He forgot his lunch, and when he wasn't outside I thought he might be working on something in here."

"No … he's not here, but I'm glad you're here anyway. I want to discuss Rodger's progress with you. Please come in." He rounded the end of the long bench that traversed the front of the room and extended his hand. "I'm Bob Horowitz," he volunteered cheerfully.

"Frank Wilson," the older man stammered as his hand was pumped enthusiastically.

"I'm Rodger's home-room teacher this year, though I've had him other years for science class. A good student … very bright … but lately he has begun to worry me. He seems to have lost interest, just in the last few months really, and other teachers have begun to notice it as well. He's still well above a failure of course, Rodger doesn't need to work to achieve what we call a passing grade, but he's putting in the very minimum of effort, and he never stays to complete experiments after school as he used to. I thought perhaps you could shed some light on the situation for us. You know, next year he's in grade thirteen, and the sort of marks he will need to get into university will require considerably more effort than he has shown this term. He is still planning a career in journalism, isn't he?"

"Oh yes, I'm sure he is. I can't think of anything that has changed. Rodger works part-time and perhaps that has become too much for him. But then, he's done that for two years now. I thought he was working really hard in school, I know he goes to the library a lot in the evenings … maybe he's just found some other interests, something new to read for example."

"Perhaps it's nothing to worry about. Sometimes a student will go through a period like this and then snap right out of it. This could all be over a girl for instance, and of course he has had a lot of illness this term."

The words hung heavily on the air for a long minute while Frank digested this news. Rodger had missed no school that he knew of. Of course Frank was never there when the boy left home in the morning, but there had been no mention of any absences. He hoped his expression didn't betray his surprise, and he replied casually. "I'll try to get to the bottom of it. Meanwhile let's hope it's nothing serious."

Frank left the brown bag on the instructor's bench and recovered the distance home in even less time than before, being ever watchful for his son. He didn't see him however, and arrived home in a real stew, growing increasingly concerned about the boy. As he entered the kitchen he heard the steady rush of the shower, and he knew that Diane was probably not aware he had been away. It was just as well, as her reaction to Rodger's truancy while unpredictable, would be totally inappropriate, and out of all proportion to the situation. It would be better to say nothing and wait for a chance to talk to him quietly in private. Frank saw the inconsistency in this: by excluding Diane in the matter he perpetuated the very alienation that was at the root of the problem; but this could be an opportunity to regain Rodger's confidence.

As his heart rate subsided Frank realized he was feeling very thirsty, and after turning the cold water faucet on full, reached into the cupboard for a drinking glass. He was immediately arrested by a loud screech from the shower, where Diane had received the temperature change caused by Frank's forgetful use of the water. He turned it off quickly and retreated out the door and down the steps, hearing Diane's railing voice diminish behind him. This latest foible left him almost completely unhinged. He felt tears of anger and frustration well into his eyes. He had to get out of there for the day somehow, lately he had been growing less and less able to disguise his lack of feeling for her. The powerful affection he had once felt for his high school sweetheart had now simply dissipated, leaving only apathy in its place. It had gradually eroded through periodic bouts of rejection and emotional turmoil and finally reversed itself into the present absence of any emotion whatever. He felt nothing for her, his anger was precipitated solely by his inability to alter his condition, by the hopeless despair that arose out of so many personal factors. His belief in monogamy, his relative poverty, his obligations to family, and his need to maintain appearances had him trapped in a narrow existence, a tunnel faintly illuminated by what appeared to be a very distant exit.

Frank strode to the aging power lawnmower and tugged on the cord angrily. The motor spun uselessly and he jerked the starter again and again until it roared to life and he began to rapidly follow the perimeter of the lawn where Rodger had begun to cut it the previous evening. He would finish this quickly, go pick up a few groceries at the store, buy a dozen beers and go visit his old man. Frank's father rarely drank but he enjoyed a visit from his eldest son. By supper-time the effects of a half-dozen beers each would have them feeling warm and convivial with one another. Yes, that was the answer; just disappear for the day.

CHAPTER FIVE

Frank arrived at the depot next morning at a few minutes before seven. He nodded to the guard in the tower who, by remote control, opened the door for him. When he entered the building he saw a knot of people in front of George Well's office at the far end of the building. As he approached, Wells stopped talking and all four men were obviously watching Frank. He waved his left hand lazily toward them and turned right into the locker room to fetch his equipment.

"I wonder what they're up to," he wondered as he strapped on his holster. The four men comprised what Frank often referred to as "the rat patrol." The three guards, all part-time employees, were George Wells' favourites, the men most likely to be assigned overnight trips out of town, air courier assignments, and other jobs which paid the lucrative four hour minimum for an hour or two of work. Reeves and Kowalski were frustrated, would-be policemen, and would probably have realized their boy-hood ambition to wear a police badge had not the police profession recently added psychological testing and a rigorous interview conducted by a professional interviewer, to their recruitment process. They had discovered through experience that those with a burning desire to wear a police uniform and a gun didn't always make the kind of officer they were looking for. The guard service, on the other hand, was slower to realize this.

The third person in the group was a huge slow-speaking, simple fellow named Chenier, a military type still active as an army reservist at age thirty. He had joined while still a boy in high school and at work he always wore hob-nailed, spit-shone combat boots, and the military style cap was carefully shaped and blocked. His eyes had a vacant starey look to them and took on a concentrated expression as he marched about the place to perform his duties, setting his boots down in sharp even steps, and swinging his arms in perfect time with the clatter of metal cleats. Frank thought Chenier was possibly dangerous.

These three men were frequently in company with the branch manager and were seen entering or leaving his office, for they discussed the job interminably, and were privy to information that, while not technically confidential, or privileged to the branch manager's position, was not known to company employees as a general rule. This gave them the belief that they were in an inner circle with management and "in the know" regarding company policy matters. In turn they relayed information and opinions about other employees to Wells. The four men were friends off the job as well; were on first-name basis with each other's wives and formed a familiar group at social functions, such as the Christmas party. On Tuesday afternoons they were invariably present for the weekly firing practice at the company pistol range. Afterward they could be seen holding court over coffee in the lunchroom; each of the guards directing his comments to George, and the three listening reverentially as he expounded on an article he had read in the company news bulletin, or as he examined some upcoming change in procedure. The four looked so uniformly alike it was remarkable. Each wore his hair cut in the military style, with very little hair showing below where the cap-band would normally sit. Their heads made Frank think of white side-wall tires when he saw the four of them seated at the table. The thick-soled, round-toed police boots were polished to a bright gleam and each took pains to see that his uniform was immaculate, creases razor sharp, cap brims and badges lustrous. Wells believed that these three were an inspiration to others and a credit to the service.

George had himself been a military officer, actually a paymaster in the army, until he resigned his commission at the end of a twenty year career, took his pension, and began a new occupation as a driver at one of the Toronto branches. This had been a perfunctory step toward management however, and he had been promoted to assistant manager eight months later. Within two years he had been assigned to the local office as manager. He continued to look very much a military figure, though now somewhat overweight, his hair was closely cropped, his complexion florid, his eyes round and piggy. He wore a military mustache too, narrow and neatly trimmed. In fact the only one of the four whose face wasn't adorned with one of these hairy affectations was Chenier. Frank often suggested that this was because his wife wouldn't let him handle sharp objects, so he couldn't keep it trimmed.

As Frank left the locker room he heard the group sniggering, no doubt over some clever remark Wells had made, and he turned sharply left to avoid meeting them. He proceeded toward the truck docking area and as he passed the dispatch office he stopped in to greet Claude. François was seated inside and Claude was talking to him in a serious manner. As Frank entered he switched effortlessly in mid-sentence from his native Quebecois to English. The two turned to face him and Frank raised his eyebrows questioningly in return.

"I was just telling François here, we had a little shoving match here yesterday afternoon, Frank."

"Oh, what's up?"

"You know the new guy, Tom, that you had on Monday? Wells told him he wanted to see him at pistol practice to 'give him a few pointers'", he made quotation marks in the air as he cited the manager. "Anyway, the kid shows up; he's got a haircut. I should say, his hair has been cut, but it's still plenty long, he just had it kind of neatened up. Chenier spots him, and starts giving him a hard time."

"Is this downstairs in the range?" interjected Frank.

"No, right there in the lunch room; the kid went in when they were having one of their little meetings, and wanted someone to get him a gun from the armoury. I guess Chenier hadn't seen him before, and started right in on his hair. Called him a hippy, and asked him why didn't he go down the road to work for the competition, since they hire hippies and winos. The kid tried to make a pretty good defense of himself, but Chenier kept overtalking him, you know how he is, and Wells and his pals weren't doing anything to help, just kind of enjoying it. By this time you could hear them all over the building, and Chenier's up and poking the kid in the chest, who finally tells him to fuck off and gives him a shove, knocking him over a bench on his ass. That's when Reeves and Kowalski jumped up and put a stop to it."

"Good thing; I wouldn't want to mess with Chenier. You probably couldn't stop him with a bat."

"Maybe so Frank, but McDermott wasn't backing down any."

The office was silent a moment as Frank digested this news item. At that moment George Wells appeared in the doorway.

"Good morning gentlemen," his tone mellifluous. His face took on a deprecatory expression; he turned patronizingly to Frank. "Frank, I've decided to assign you that new man, what's his name?"

"Tom," replied Frank flatly, knowing Wells preferred to address third persons by their family name as a rule.

"Oh yes, McDermott. He'll be your guard on a permanent basis for the next four months, until he returns to university. I think you'll find you two have a lot in common." Before Frank could reply he turned on his heel and left the office.

Frank adopted a sly grin and winked at the other two. Things were working out rather well.

Tom McDermott was standing by the truck loading dock talking to one of the vault clerks and watched his new partners approaching. He hadn't been informed yet of the news and believed his job was still on the line as a result of yesterday's events. He had realized right away that Chenier must be one of Well's sycophants, but that had not deterred him. Now of course he had had time to think about it: he really couldn't afford to lose this job; it was too late to find another summer placement, and the future of his education might well hang in the balance. He had brought along his civvies this morning in a paper bag, in case he was ordered, or otherwise decided, to turn in his uniform.

"Hi, Frank, François. Guess you heard about yesterday," he began solemnly.

"We sure did," said Frank in a serious tone, his expression dead-pan, "And I have some bad news for you."

The younger man's expression drooped at these words.

"You're going to have to spend the summer working with us!" Frank grinned.

Tom allowed his knees to buckle in an expression of exaggerated relief, then recovered quickly. "This is great," he said animatedly, "I wasn't even sure I still had a job, now I'm getting the exact assignment I wanted." Then more soberly he added, "You know, a regular shift with dependable hours."

"We know Tom," the driver said kindly in his heavy accent, "We're glad to have you too. But were not going to advertise that. We're being punished!" he ended archly.

The three men began the day's work in high spirits. The truck was quickly loaded and they soon found themselves beyond the morning city traffic and on the open highway, headed once more up the valley. When they approached their usual coffee stop Francois wheeled the heavy truck into the parking lot and shut it off.

"I want you to take François' place in the cab Tom," Frank explained as they opened the rear door, "then in a little while one of us will relieve you so you can come in for your coffee," then, "we're really making good time this morning; thirty-five minutes to kill."

Frank stretched as he stepped down, and waited for the two men to exchange places. He and François entered the busy restaurant, dropped their caps on the counter in front of two empty stools and continued toward the washroom. When they returned they were greeted, to Frank's surprise, by his favourite waitress. She beamed down upon him as they seated themselves.

"Hi, I thought you were no longer with us."

She screwed up her face in mock confusion. "What?"

"We came in on Monday and you weren't here. I thought maybe you had quit."

"No, I was here. I had to come in late." Without taking an order she filled two cups with steaming coffee from one of three machines spaced out along the long counter.

"You guys are here early today."

"Yeah … and we have a new man." Frank began to smile slyly at the pretty waitress, "a young guy, college boy … with long hair." François grinned now also.

"Well, things are looking up around here," she replied trying to sound coy and sexy at the same time. She turned to serve other customers with a throaty laugh.

The two men quietly discussed their day off. Francois and his wife Gabrielle had spent all of Tuesday opening their "camp" for the summer. They had maintained, for many years, a lake-front cottage in the Laurentians where they hoped to retire one day. He now outlined for Frank his plans for the summer, a short list of improvements to be completed this season on the property. For these projects François enlisted the support and assistance of various members of his large family, so that the cottage was filled most weekends with siblings, inlaws, children and grandchildren, so much indeed that it was Gabrielle's job during summer to arrange accommodation, and pre-plan visits in order to avoid overcrowding, while still organizing François' construction helpers. Frank had been to the camp a number of times, once he had taken his family there on Sunday to a barbecue, and other times he had assisted on a Tuesday with some project or other. It was always a pleasure for Frank, to be asked to help out that way; it meant an outing to the Laurentians and always a warm welcome and a hearty home-cooked meal.

The two men sat in silence, as they often did, and Frank remembered the springtime fifteen years ago, when François' father had obtained a land severance and had given to each of his children a lakefront lot from the family farm. He had then sold the remainder of the land with the buildings and moved his aged and ailing wife to town. In order to travel to the lake François had bought an old four-door sedan, with a reliable drive-train, but suffering badly from what Frank had called "road cancer". The two men had spotted it during their work day, the car had been scrubbed up and placed on the lawn of a corner residential lot, so that it attracted attention from both streets. A large sign on the windshield stated simply, $100. François rapped loudly on the window between them and pointed excitedly toward the curb, then he stopped the truck and the two men looked it over.

Upon close inspection the ten year old vehicle didn't look like such a bargain. Along the bottoms of the rear fenders, where the mud and salt splashed up from the wheels, there were long torn rusty holes leading directly into the trunk. The front fenders bore similar evidence of age. Frank opened the driver's door and reached under it, pressing upward into the door bottom with his fingers. The bottoms of the doors were rotten too. He opened the rear door and placed his foot on the floor behind the driver's seat. Grasping the roofline at the door opening he swung up onto this foot, placing all his weight directly on the floor. A sickening crunch could be heard from where François stood watching. The carpet under Frank's foot gave away beneath his weight.

"Floor's gone too," he muttered, as to himself.

"What do you think Frank?" François asked comically, "Too much money?"

"No, it's okay. These were good cars, you still see lots of them on the road. It's the salt makes them look bad. Don't forget, in Eastern Ontario the salt destroys bridges and parking garages. What chance does an old car have? But we can fix it. Won't cost too much either."

The two men returned after work that day, test drove the car and then François paid cash for it, counting the bills carefully out of his worn leather wallet. He drove the car home and parked it in the alley behind the dry cleaning store, which was beneath the apartment occupied by the family of six. They began immediately, jacking the car up and placing it on cement blocks and pieces of board until it sat high enough to be able to work on the lower parts comfortably. Gabrielle sat on the wooden steps, chewing her lower lip anxiously as the two found increasingly more damage to be repaired. Everywhere they probed what appeared to be scaly rust, the hammer or screwdriver created another hole. She said nothing, but the worried expression in her eyes betrayed her belief that François had wasted his money.

Next morning, before the couple had finished breakfast, Frank showed up with what tools he owned and several more than he had borrowed, ready to start to work. He and François began by removing the seats from the derelict, an easier job than anticipated, for the rear bench merely popped out, first the seat and then the backrest, and the front seat, though attached to the floor, had proved to be no match for François' powerful forearms. Once he had the wrench securely fastened to the rusted bolts they had twisted and broken readily enough. The seats thus out of the way, the carpets were then pulled out onto the ground. They stared in disbelief at the gaping holes that opened up before them. The entire area from just behind the foot pedals to where the rear seat would normally begin was a mass of wet, brown, thick, loose scale. As François pushed at it with his fingers, more of it fell away, crumbing to his touch and landing with a dead clatter on the earth beneath the car. The raised crown along the centre of the compartment which covered the drive-shaft was solid, but the passenger side of the floor was almost a mirror image of the mess the discouraged pair were presently examining.

"It's no use Frank," the big man said, dejected. "We can't fix that. I should never have bought it."

Frank was inclined to agree with him; he had believed, with reckless enthusiasm, that they would be finished quickly. Now however, the obstacles appeared insurmountable. What could two men with no experience, and a few basic household tools, do with such a mess? He sat down in the doorway of the vehicle and said nothing for a long time while François smoked a cigarette in disgust. If only he hadn't encouraged François to buy the damned thing, they wouldn't be in this fix. The car couldn't even be moved in its present state, for if they put what they could of it back together, the police would take it off the road in two minutes. Unable to speak of it, Frank got up and carried the seat into a patch of sunlight along the brick wall opposite, then he picked up the heavy piece of carpet and laid it over the backrest, inside out so that the sun might dry it.

"Forget it Frank," .. this time his voice was raised somewhat, insistent. "I'm going to call the wrecker."

Frank wavered. The old car would take a lot of time, and Diane had already expressed her opinion of him donating his efforts to this project. Should he defer to the older man's decision, or press ahead, insisting on throwing good money after bad? This option exerted a strong pull; he felt responsible for the present situation. He began cautiously.

"You're right, it's bad, but the worst of it is the floor and the trunk, right? The other holes are smaller, and we already knew about them. But when you think about it, the floor and trunk are the easiest; they're flat surfaces and you can't see them anyhow once we're done. We'll go get some tin, and some rivets and roofing cement and stuff and we'll try and finish that much today. After that the rest won't seem so bad."

François appeared unconvinced. Frank knew he was thinking about the magnitude of the help being offered, and he was reluctant to accept. "Come on," he said as he walked briskly to his own car, "the sooner we get that stuff and get started the better. We're not going to let it defeat us."

François said nothing, but he fell in beside him. The two men worked together, their torsos inside the old vehicle all that day, hammering and shaping the galvanized steel until it was pressed close enough to what remained of the floor to take a rivet. They spoke seldom, quietly murmuring instructions to one another from time to time, drilling holes, pushing and pressing in unison to complete the many difficult joints, cutting the metal where it was reluctant to form the necessary shape and then sometimes applying a second patch over such openings to complete the repair.

By supper time their faces and forearms were orange, their hair caked with the heavy metallic dust and their hands stained with tar, but the job was complete. The floors and trunk were mended and had been coated with thick coats of roofing tar, so that the patchwork job was no longer visible. The big Frenchman put his arm around Frank's shoulders and squeezed him hard, then slapped his back twice. He turned away then, ran up the steps to the apartment door where he quickly reappeared with two sweaty cold quarts of beer. Before he had reached the ground the door re-opened and Gabrielle, a heavy towel around her shoulders, descended with a large pan of hot soapy water. The two men stripped to the waist and laughed at the accumulation of dirt, now made more visible by contrast lines where sleeves and collars had protected them. When they had washed most of it off and Frank was wearing one of François' old uniform shirts, they sat on the steps sipping their beer.

"You know Frank, I never thought we could fix that. It's a big job you're helping me with here." His eyes shone with the emotion of what he was trying to say.

"Don't worry about it, I'll need a hand too, someday. Do you think you and your young lad could go ahead with the rest of the patching up? Then I'll come over on Sunday and we'll finish it off. We can make up a list of materials at work tomorrow." Frank rose to go.

"Okay, … Frank you aren't going now, Gabie has supper all ready. You have to stay for supper!"

The younger man hesitated. "I better call Diane and let her know."

The two climbed the wooden staircase and entered the kitchen. Frank went immediately to the telephone on the wall and dialed.

"Hi, I'm still at François."

Silence.

Frank froze, then attempted to sound as though they were having a conversation. After a pause he continued. "I'm going to stay here for supper. Gabrielle has it all ready."

"Fine," the instrument crackled sharply, followed by a loud click and the grim finality of the dial tone.

Frank hesitated a moment, then replaced the receiver on its hook. He turned to find the couple watching him, looking concerned.

"Is everything all right Frank?"

"Oh sure, everything is fine," but he felt the tell-tale flush as his reddening ears and cheeks betrayed his discomfiture, and from that moment François knew of his young friend's problem, and Frank knew that he knew.

When he returned early Sunday morning he went first-off to the old car to inspect the work that had been going on in his absence. The carpeting and seats had been reinstalled, and François and his son had completed the riveting of patches over the holes and had ground the entire work area with sandpaper disks and an electric drill so that the car was now ready for filler. Frank opened the trunk and found a cardboard box filled with supplies. He lifted this out and put it on the ground, then selected a gallon can of polyester filler. He began to read the instructions on the label.

Soon François joined him and they began once more to work, Frank mixing the fast-hardening plastic on a small sheet of metal and applying it quickly to use it all up before it adhered to his putty knife. This job progressed quickly, and as the day was already quite warm, the mixture hardened so fast that François was able to begin sanding almost at once. The shiny pieces of metal scrap began to disappear, the panels taking on once more their original shapes. Soon both men were lying alongside of the car, their heads raised slightly from the ground as they operated the electric drill sanders above them. The work was gruelling, for their arms quickly ached and the white powder flew off the edge of the rotating disks, so that if they weren't careful in which direction they worked it sometimes would blow directly into their faces, clotting in their eyelashes, burning the eyes and leaving a chlorine taste in their noses and throats.

Frank heard Gabrielle calling to François from the kitchen door; she spoke animatedly to him for a long minute in French. He struggled to his feet and walked to the steps, returning with two pieces of damp cloth to be used as dust masks. "We have to put these on, Frank." François grinned sheepishly.

"Good idea, we'll still have to watch our eyes though."

By lunch-time they had made great progress, the final imperfections were being replastered and François was stirring a quart of black rust-coat paint to be applied over their completed work and along the bottom section of the car. By two o'clock they were picking up their tools and congratulating one another on their accomplishment. The children began to crowd around, impatient for the paint to be dry, while Frank replaced the wheels and began to return the vehicle to the ground. François sent them to find cleaning materials with which to complete the job inside, and they crawled in and out, washing windows and door-pads, shining chrome and wiping dust from everywhere. Finally they could find nothing more to occupy themselves, and at last François declared the paint to be "dry enough". This began an immediate uproar, causing the men to laugh. Maybe they could take a quick drive to the lake, he continued, as the children shouted encouragement; they could be back before dark. Frank would of course come along, but in the end he had refused to do so, and under protest, had watched as the family drove away, the two smallest children waving to him from the rear window. The car was no thing of beauty, he reflected, but it didn't look too bad from a distance. It was the family's first automobile.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

"So what do you think, Frank? It's a good idea?"

Frank snapped back into reality. "I'm sorry François, I was thinking about something. What did you say?"

"I was telling you about this plan they have for anybody who was in the war. I can add on my army time to my pension, and retire earlier."

"You mean you still have an army pension plan?"

"No, I didn't have any money when I left the army, so I got my contributions back, I think it was only about a hundred dollars. Now, with the interest, it would be more, but I can put it back. That means I can retire in December."

"What? You mean this December? Did you just explain all this to me?"

"Well no Frank, I was just getting to that part. I know you're not going to be too happy about it."

It was a shock. Frank had known François would retire soon, perhaps in two or three years, but this event had now been moved ahead into the immediate future. The departure of his friend and colleague would affect Frank's job, for he had cultivated few friends in the guard service, and his continuing enmity with George Wells would ensure that he couldn't select his new co-worker. Frank would certainly be at loose ends come the end of summer. François dropped several coins on the counter and rose to go out and replace Tom.

When Tom sat down he noticed at once that Frank's mood had changed. He remarked lightly, "What's the matter? You look like you just lost your best friend."

"You're not far wrong Tom," he answered with a bitter smile, then to change the subject, he signalled to the waitress for more coffee.

As Frank turned off the expressway on his way home he found himself still pondering François' approaching resignation. It had bothered him on-and-off the entire day. To regret his driver's good fortune and early retirement seemed to him a trifle selfish, but Frank was surely going to miss the presence of that big Frenchman who had been a part of his working life for so many years.

Still, the news wasn't all bad. Tom McDermott was working out well; Frank had observed him carefully all day and found him very capable as a guard. He had made some preliminary inquiries, tentatively testing his attitudes on several subjects of interest to himself. The younger man was interesting, informed, and possessed a receptive tolerance to the ideas and opinions of others, even if not always prepared to agree with them. Frank respected that in him and found, perhaps prematurely, that he was beginning to like his new partner.

As Frank turned into the laneway Diane was standing on the front lawn talking to Joan Stanton, who was waiting for her dog to finish its business with the grass. The little poodle continued to circle, sniffing carefully, always in the preparatory semi-crouched position.

"Got to find the exact right spot," Frank raged inwardly, "Wouldn't want to piss anywhere that the lawn's already dead." He parked the car beyond the corner of the house, out of sight of the two women, and shut it off. "Damn, I haven't been home ten seconds and already I'm upset. I've got to learn to take things more in stride. Nothing here is going to change, and refusing to accept it just makes my head ache." As he entered the kitchen the heavy aroma of cooking met his nostrils and he realized he was hungry. The food smelled good. Diane could be heard climbing the front stairs and soon she joined him.

"Hi, you're home early. I was hoping to have dinner ready when you got home." She smiled warmly at him.

Frank placed his hands on her waist and kissed her quickly on the lips. She was cooly responsive. Frank was suspicious; this was nothing like the reception he had anticipated, after the row that had occurred when he arrived home yesterday evening. She had accused him of being a drunk, and failing to show consideration for his family. What had brought about the dramatic change in climate? Surely not any feelings of regret or remorse over the events of the past two days, for normally the atmosphere would continue to be frosty for some time yet. "No, there's something in the wind", he thought ironically.

"How did it go today?"

"Oh fine, I was up before Rodger left, did housework all morning, then watched my shows this afternoon. I had a nice day."

"Oh … well that's good … No calls or anything?"

"Nope."

Frank began to walk away, unbuttoning his shirt as he went. He remained nonplussed at this turn of things. "Who knows, maybe she's as sick of the way things have been going as I am, still …"

When the family sat down to dinner Frank watched his son closely for some sign that he had been caught. There was none, indeed at one point the boy felt his father looking at him, and boldly, had returned his stare, a quizzical yet offensive "yes?" in his eyes. Frank was puzzled.

"Did you get your lunch okay yesterday?"

"Well no, actually, I got it today. I didn't go yesterday," delivered in a matter-of-fact manner, with no apparent note of apology.

Frank pushed his plate ahead slightly and rested his arms on the table. "I see, and ah, why not?"

"Now Frank, don't get angry," Diane interrupted, "I explained everything to Mr. Horowitz when he called this morning."

"You explained things, and how did you know he was absent yesterday?"

"Well, I didn't know before, but they were going to suspend him Frank. For truancy, and I might add, none of this would have happened if you hadn't gone nosing around the school yesterday."

Frank ignored her. "Where were you yesterday?"

"He was in Toronto".

Frank continued to look directly into the boy's face. "And what were you doing in Toronto?"

"Looking for an apartment. That is, Jimmy and Suds and I are. We're going to T.O. for the summer to work and we're going to share expenses."

"I see, but aren't you forgetting something? You need jobs before you can look for an apartment."

"We have jobs. This isn't the first time we took a day off. We have jobs already and now we have an apartment too. We paid the first month's rent yesterday."

"Don't you think you'd be further ahead staying home for the summer and working full-time? You don't have to pay anything here. Look at the money you could save. I'm against this!"

"Dad, I'm not asking for your permission. I'll be eighteen next month, I want to work in Toronto this summer, and I'm going!" He picked up his knife and fork and began to eat quickly, his eyes on his plate. Frank and Diane did likewise. They ate in silence, Rodger finished his meal and rose from the table.

"I've got to go. I'll be late for work." He hurried from the room and presently Frank heard the front door bang shut.

"Tell me. How much did you know about this?"

"This morning before school, Rodger got me up and told me about the Toronto plan. He said one of his friends warned him the teachers were asking questions about him yesterday. So I wrote him a note, what else could I do? Anyway, about eleven o'clock the teacher phoned to ask whether I had written a letter excusing Rodger from school. Of course, I said I had. Then he asked me why my signature looked so different from all the other notes I had written. I told him I suffer from rheumatism and sometimes I don't write so well. He laughed at that. Laughed at me Frank! I was so mad, but I couldn't say anything. I was afraid they were going to suspend Rodger."

"And I suppose you think that would make a difference?" Frank demanded through clenched teeth. "Or are you really not sharp enough to understand what's happening here?"

"What do you mean? What's happening Frank?" she replied stupidly.

"He's quitting school, that's what! Those pals of his have no intention of going to university, and Rodger won't be coming back here this fall either. Once he gets down there in Toronto, earning a full paycheck, making his own rules, and tom-catting around, he won't want to return here."

"Oh Frank you don't know anything of the sort, and I wish you wouldn't be so vulgar. Roger has more self-control than you do, and he probably isn't morbidly fascinated with sex like you are. He just wants to be on his own for awhile, that's all." Her face softened. "Remember, when I was eighteen we got married." She smiled at him over this reminiscence.

"Don't remind me," he glared at her. "I hope you wouldn't be satisfied to watch him do a replay of your life! … Or mine," he added quietly after some reflection.

CHAPTER SIX

Frank often wondered in the following weeks and months whether he and Tom would have grown so quickly into close friends had George Wells not provided the initial impetus. For in the running afoul of Wells and his group of "management sucks" as Frank referred to them, Tom had earned the admiration of his new partners, who harboured a number of grievances they wouldn't normally have shared with a summer replacement. The incident had placed him on the right side of the fence as far as they were concerned and this united their opinions on a range of subjects, touching on management rights and abuses in general, and George Wells and his cohorts in particular. The situation at the depot didn't improve as the summer wore on, and on two other occasions Frank found himself taking Tom's part in confrontations contrived by one or another of the "rat patrol." His avoidance of those men had never endeared him to them and they began now to describe Tom as "Wilson's little pal." This labelling lent greater cohesion to their burgeoning friendship, already flourishing within the confines of the steel box, where defences and pretenses tend to break down or become transparent in the magnified, closed atmosphere.

Once they locked themselves in at seven AM there was neither relief nor escape from one another for ten hours. Those hours could drag on infinitely within the bleak confines of their employment. Frank had found this especially so in the past when he had been poorly matched with a guard. Being somewhat introverted, with a propensity to solitude, Frank would have sooner spent those hours alone than be locked up with someone he preferred to keep at a distance. On the other hand, in a one-on-one situation with the right person, Frank loved to talk and discuss a wide range of topics. In the case of Tom McDermott, Frank never found close contact a hardship. They found each other's company neither unpleasant nor boring, the younger man was conversant on a variety of subjects and politely attentive on others. The numerous quiet spells were not sullen uncomfortable silences as Frank had experienced in the past, but were used most often as periods of reflection, leading to agreement or conclusion on their discussions.

And so the two men came, in time, to think of themselves as partners, and this partnership once begun progressed quickly. The inevitable questioning and testing of attitudes that occurs during the formation of a relationship elicited personal histories and rough personality sketches; and through a series of hints, subtle tes