West of wawa, p.27
West of Wawa, page 27
“Not a lot of places to stay up here,” he said, sounding much like Tom from Detroit, “and they’re all expensive and not very safe either. You’re very welcome to share my tent, but I’ve got to tell you it’s not the driest place in the world.”
Outside, the rain was pelting down hard and Benny had a dismal vision of herself, wet and shivering, out in the middle of a field in heaven knows where, with water pouring in from all sides and piles of rock samples for company. Oh, and Sean. There was that upside to be considered. However, while it was very kind of him to offer, and she truly did think he was being genuinely kind with no ulterior motives, camping had never been her thing.
“Very nice of you to offer,” she said. They talked while Sean continued to eat and it was pleasant to engage in the general chatter of nothingness, up there in that Yellowknife café at midnight with the sound of the rain outside and air filled with the thick fog of teenage cigarette smoke.
“So what are you going to do?” Sean asked. “The bus you just came up on is the only one out of here for the next three days and it leaves in a couple of hours.”
Benny started to say she had no idea when the chair next to Sean was scraped aside and a man in a dirty white chef’s apron sat down noisily and drew himself up to the table.
“Well, hello there,” the newcomer said and Benny felt Sean stiffen. She looked up to see a blonde jock-god smiling at her with all the force and focus of a quarterback doing a Pepsi commercial. His green eyes glowed and his dimples cut deep. Benny felt the vortex suck of his power and extended her hand.
“Benny,” she said. He took her hand in his big paw and she felt dismayed. She had been expecting a Mickey-like jolt of electricity but all she thought was that his hand felt unexpectedly doughy. She wanted to snatch her hand back but he was holding on tight.
“Sheldon White at your service,” he said. “Ex-jock, now chef of Joe’s Midnight Café in Yellowknife. Welcome.”
Benny thought she heard Sean Connery making a snorting sound but she was mesmerized, locked in the lava lamp glow of Sheldon’s green eyes and that flashing grin.
“Where are you staying?” Sheldon asked.
Benny shrugged. “I’ve got absolutely less than no idea,” she admitted. “Any suggestions?”
He looked at his watch. It was getting close to 2:00 a.m. “I get off at 4:00,” he said, “soon as the bus leaves. You’re quite welcome to come and crash at my place, no strings attached. It’s no castle, I’ll tell you that much but it’s clean and dry. Your honour will be respected madam, I’m a gentleman and a man of my word, isn’t that right, Johnny?”
Benny looked at Sean Connery who was staring into his coffee. He gave Sheldon a half-glance, leaned over and shook Benny’s hand and got to his feet. “His place will be drier than mine, that’s for sure,” he said, donning an Indiana Jones hat and tipping it at Benny. “Put supper on my tab, Shel. See you tomorrow night and try to have something new on the menu, won’t you?”
He threaded through the thinning tables, the teenagers yawning and straggling out into the wet night. Sheldon watched him go. “He’s just sore because he wanted you for himself,” he said casually and Benny felt flattered that Sheldon wanted her.
“So how about it?” he asked. “You want to crash with me?”
Benny was exhausted. It seemed like it was his place or get right back on the bus. “Yes, please, that would be lovely.”
He told her she had a couple of hours to wait, to help herself to the magazines and newspapers, that the cafe owner wouldn’t notice. “And if he does, I’ll tell him it was for a buddy of mine. It’ll be copasetic. Come to the counter, I’ll fill up your coffee.”
Benny passed the two hours of waiting by falling into a numb jet-lagged timeless zone. She read up on all the latest celebrity cellulite disasters and their marital catastrophes while outside it continued to rain. Sheldon finally started to close up the cafe, moving through what was clearly a familiar routine of packing and cleaning up. She watched him work, admiring his focus, his neatness. She got up and went over to him.
“You’re very neat and tidy,” she said.
“I was taught that at chef school,” he said. “Mise en place. ‘Everything has its place’. It’s a motto I live by. The other motto I live by is one my dad taught me. He said a man without his word is nothing; ‘be a man of your word, my son.’ And so I am. I’m a man of my word.” He wiped and cleaned. She noticed he had an earring in each ear and a large tattoo on the back of his neck. He also had a Toronto Maple Leaf tattoo on the back of his calf and more tattoos peeking out from his sleeves. He was a big man, linebacker solid, not trim. He moved as if he were in pain – his knee she guessed.
“Enjoying the view?” he asked and she blushed.
“Sure, why not?” she countered and he grinned.
“I think we’ll have ourselves some fun, you and me,” he said, closing the last of the cabinet doors, “if we ever get around to it.” He took a look around. It was pristine. “Okay,” he said, “you wait here, I’ll bring the truck around. Wait by the front door.”
HASH SUNDOWNER IN A YELLOWKNIFE DAWN
She stood under a small awning, feeling drugged by her need for sleep, glad the rain was easing up. The dripping eaves were lit by a bare light bulb that hung outside the café and dark blue of the night sky held a glow, heralding the sunrise that was minutes away. Sheldon pulled up in a dark green battered GMC van that had seen better days. He leapt out, grabbed her bag, and threw it in the back. She was glad she hadn’t let him touch her camera bag, what with a throwing arm like that. She climbed into the truck that smelled strongly of hash. Her feet were buried in a pool of CDs. She looked down.
“Oh, don’t worry about those,” he said. “Listen, I just have to make a stop-off, okay? It won’t take long then I’ll get you home to bed. You look exhausted.”
“I am,” Benny admitted. It was nearly 5:00 a.m., and they drove in silence for a while.
“You like Pearl Jam?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said and he popped the CD in. They swung into a used car lot filled with rusting cars piled at random. A large Alsatian barked and pulled at a chain, its teeth bared.
“Wait here,” Sheldon said and he hopped out of the car. The rain had stopped but the mud was intense, and Benny had no desire to get out. She watched Sheldon greet a wiry man in a dirty white undershirt, who came out to see what the dog was barking at. There was a lot of hand slapping back and forth, and then Sheldon returned to the truck.
“Hate this mud,” he said, “but what can you do?” He started the engine and backed out of the car lot. He rolled a hash joint with one hand while he drove, and Benny knew she was looking at a one-trick pony strut-its-stuff, but she was impressed anyway. He lit it and offered it to her.
“Oh, this is good,” Benny said, closing her eyes.
He laughed. “I get the best,” he said, “This is the end of my working day, this is my sundowner. It’s upside down, like so many things here in Yellowknife. So, how old are you anyways?”
“Twenty-five,” she said, losing track of who she had told what to. “You?”
“Thirty-five, going on thirty-six soon. Too old to be up here, doing what I do but hey, it could be worse. I was a Marlie you know, all set to be a Leaf. I’m not shitting you, it’s the truth. But one season with the AHL and I blew my knee out. Never came back. So my grannie, she loaned me some money. She said, boy, you always liked to cook, now go and learn how to do it right. So I did. I worked in some good restaurants in Toronto. But then the travel bug bit.” He looked over at her. “I’m sure you know how that is,” he said and she nodded. “So I got as far as here and then I got offered a job doing the night shift at Joe’s and I’ve been here for three years now. I like it. I guess one day I’ll move on, go back to Toronto, I dunno.”
“What about a girlfriend?” Benny asked and he laughed.
“I was wondering when we’d get to that. I had a girlfriend,” he said. “She was psycho. Left me and ran off with a bush pilot, thank God.”
“How long ago was that?”
“What are you, the girlfriend police?” He sounded irritated. “I dunno, say, two years ago, maybe less, maybe more.” They pulled up at a block of apartment buildings, once cream-coloured, now gray and weathered. “You’ll be glad to know I’m in the basement,” he said and he led her down the stairs. “Much better for sleeping in summer. I’m lucky, the guy who owns the building lets me stay rent free. I cook for him and his wife sometimes and I take care of him, if you know what I mean.” He opened a door and pushed his way inside. It was dark and Benny blinked, letting her eyes adjust. The place was a mess. So much for ‘mise-en-place’! He turned on a couple of lights and Benny saw a large La-Z-Boy chair facing a big screen TV and an old wooden desk in the corner with a computer. The desk was covered with papers and junk. He guided her through a living room of sorts to a tiny bedroom. A double bed filled the room with bookcases lining two of the walls, their shelves packed tight with blankets, rolled-up posters, girlie magazines and all kinds of knick-knacks including a pair of praying white hands. The bed was covered with a pristine homemade knitted Toronto Maple Leaf blanket. Sheldon took it off the bed and folded it neatly before laying it on the top of the bookcase.
“My mom made it for me,” he said. “Here, let me show you the washroom.”
Given the mess of the outer rooms, Benny was surprised by the immaculate perfection of the washroom. Gleaming shaving equipment was laid out on a face cloth, all precisely lined up. The entire washroom was scrubbed and polished.
“Wow,” she said. “You do keep this clean.”
Sheldon shrugged. “So listen, you want to bath, shower, sleep, what? There’s a kitchenette. We walked through it on our way in but I don’t have any food in there. Why would I, I eat at the café for free. What do you want to do?”
“Sleep,” Benny said immediately, “sleep, sleep, sleep.”
He laughed. “Okay, well, don’t mind me, I’m going to wind down, watch some TV. I’m back on shift at 7:00 tonight, I usually go to bed around noon, so if you want to walk around or anything do whatever you want. You can’t walk to the café from here and this area isn’t the greatest, so be careful.” He dug into one of the desk drawers and handed her a set of keys. “For the apartment. Welcome to my humble abode.”
“Fantastic, thanks. Right now, all I want is bed,” Benny gave a jaw splitting yawn. “If I wake up and you’re sleeping, I hope I won’t disturb you.”
He grinned at her, that flashy all-star grin. “Sweetheart, when I’m sleeping, wild buffalo couldn’t wake me.” He climbed onto his La-Z-Boy and pointed a remote at the TV, reaching for his hash next to him. Benny went into the bedroom and pulled on her pajamas. She had no idea what she was doing in this apartment in the middle of nowhere with a guy she had just met, but she didn’t care. Her need for sleep was overwhelming and besides, Sheldon was a hunk, not to mention charming. She climbed under the blankets and found the mattress thin but comfortable. The pillows were equally thin and she was surprised. Somehow she’d imagined Sheldon to have a more luxurious bed. She soon fell fast asleep, waking briefly to voices arguing loudly in the other room; it sounded like a man and a woman were arguing, with Sheldon shouting back. When she woke again, the TV was belting out what she thought sounded like an orgy of people grunting and thrusting. She was vaguely aware of Sheldon climbing into bed, and she was woken up several hours later by his loud snoring.
She lay there for a while, knowing there was no way she’d get back to sleep. She climbed over him gently but he had been right, he was oblivious. She grabbed her backpack and pulled it into the bathroom. She closed the door and ran a deep hot bath, laying all her toiletries and shampoos out on the shelf beside the basin. She took her time in the bath, refilling it twice with hot water, soaping and scrubbing. She finally got out and pulled on a new set of clothes, stuffing her dirty ones into a plastic bag. She figured she’d find a laundromat. She checked her watch, surprised to see it was 3:00 p.m. She gathered her camera bag and her dirty laundry and left Sheldon a note, setting out to explore.
She was immediately disappointed. There wasn’t much by way of tourist attractions. The area around Sheldon’s apartment was a dreary wasteland of welfare housing.
She found a laundromat. The yellow and brown walls were lined with signs forbidding the patrons to do an array of activities. She filled up a washload and went for a walk, hoping to find a used bookstore along the way. She found a man selling Goodwill trinkets on the sidewalk, blue plastic necklaces and unreadable old paperbacks, alongside drawings that he’d coloured in badly. She wondered if he was trying to make a living the sober way, and if so, felt she should be supportive but when she examined the necklaces and the crayoned ducks, she had to walk away.
Benny found a dollar store and asked the owner if there was a bookstore nearby. He waved her down the street. She finally came to an antiquated store, its windows gray with dust. Inside she held out slim hope for a treasure; the shelves were primarily stocked with the usual Danielle Steeles and Dean Koontz. In the end Benny picked out The Drifters by James Michener, feeling it suited her mood. She went out into the sunshine of the late afternoon, thinking it would be a good idea to pick up some food for later. She found a Chinese takeout and ordered a vegetarian stir-fry with noodles.
She went into the convenience store for a bar of chocolate and a diet Coke and grabbed a box of Kellogg’s Special K and a litre of skim milk. Then she went back to see how her laundry was doing. She put her clothes in the dryer and sat reading The Drifters and eating her chocolate until the cycle finished. When she walked back to the apartment, the shadows had lengthened but the light was still strong. She walked fast, laden with laundry, food and her camera bag, leery of the gangsta boys who seemed genuinely unfriendly and dangerous. No hip hop MTV kids here. She got back to the apartment just as Sheldon was about to leave. He looked at her in a rather cool way, she thought.
HELP YOURSELF TO MY PORN
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“You left the bathroom in a mess,” he said. “But it’s not your fault, I never explained. You need to clean up after yourself.” He pointed to the kitchen counter and Benny looked over at a roll of paper towel and a line-up of various cleaning products: Vim, Windex, anti-bacterial wipes.
“I’m sorry,” she said, laying down her bags.
He flashed her a spectacular grin. “Don’t worry,” he said, his mood switching back. “So, listen, I’m going to head out. I’ll be back around 5:00 a.m., and if you like I’ll pick you up and take you for a drive okay? Show you the scenery, the greenery, such as it is. Here, let me show you how to use the TV controls. I watch a lotta porn; you’re welcome to watch some if you like. Some chicks are into that, some not. I always think if you are not, what are you hiding? And hey, if you want to use the computer, feel free too. That girlfriend of mine though, she read all my emails. Don’t read my emails okay?”
“I would never do that,” Benny was shocked. “What kind of person would do that?”
He laughed. “More than you would know. So look, here are all the controls, okay?” He showed her the various TV channels, including his vast array of porn. “I also got a bunch of DVDs,” he said, showing her a box next to the La-Z-Boy.
“You know, it’s a good thing I work shifts because we can share the chair.” He laughed. “Have a good night, make yourself at home. There’s no password on my computer, just turn it on. That girlfriend I had, she was psycho, man, she would look at my histories of what I was looking at on the Internet and then, she’d get mad at me for surfing porn without her. Weirdo. She broke all that.” He pointed to a panel of kitchen cabinets without their doors. “The landlord was pissed, I’ll tell you. Tried to get me to pay for it. I told him to go and find her.”
“I’d never spy on you like she did,” Benny told him again, wanting him to know she wasn’t like his ex-girlfriend. He shrugged as if to say you will, you won’t, who cares. Then he left. Benny flicked through the box of DVDs. There was a collection of Bruce Willis movies, along with a bunch featuring big-busted blondes with long red fingernails cupping generous cleavage, all of the women pouting at the camera through a soft-filtered lens. Benny turned on the TV, and scrolled through until she found the channel with C.S.I. and Criminal Minds, and she ate her vegetables and noodles that were really tasty. She watched TV until midnight and then she cleaned the bathroom, scrubbing and polishing. She felt she understood Sheldon’s need for bleach and cleanliness and she wanted to show him that she was a kindred spirit. She wished she had been more aware of the mess she’d made.
After she cleaned, she climbed into bed, propped herself up against the wall with the thin pillows and read. She was too wide-awake to sleep – she felt as if she’d been with Sheldon in Yellowknife for weeks, but in fact, it hadn’t even been twenty-four hours. It was only Friday night, and she still had all of Saturday and Sunday before the next bus left at 4:00 a.m., on Monday morning. She had to admit she was a little disappointed in how things were working out with Sheldon and she wished she had gone camping with Sean Connery instead. But Sheldon was fine. He was just moody and in future, she’d clean up better.
She pulled out her maps and studied them, wondering if she could cut across to Hay River and then go up to the Arctic Circle from there. She thought she’d do some online research and she turned on Sheldon’s computer. She launched the Internet browser and found the Greyhound bus site. Seemed she was out of luck, there was no direct connection across to Hay River; she’d have to go the whole way back down. She sighed. She surfed the net and found some celebrity gossip sites but it seemed not much was happening in their worlds either. Then, unable to stop herself, she checked Sheldon’s history, peeking quickly at the pull-down menu at the top. Whoa. Hardcore porn for sure. Benny felt dismayed. She suddenly wished she could leave his apartment but go where? She had no idea where the centre of town was or, for that matter, where she was.
