May Long Part 5
Catelyn Elisabeth Tottenham sat in silence across from Paco
in the dining booth of the Winnebago.
She slowly, deliberately removed her white smoking gloves, then crossed
her arms across her chest. She looked
just about as annoyed as Paco had ever seen her, and that was saying
something. She wiped a tear from her
eye.
Paco was annoyed by the silence, “What’s the fakking
problem?”
Catelyn almost screamed at him, then collected herself. Raising her voice would have been quite
improper, “Hunter of course! I came all
the way out here on this trip to see him, and my friends for possibly the last
time, and he has to ruin everything!”
She looked out the window, tears flowing freely down her face now, “Look
at him! He’s been sat there all
afternoon listening to music and sulking!”
Paco looked out the window to where Hunter and Bill were
sitting, then turned to Catelyn, “First, stop trying to use tears to bring me
to your side,” Catelyn opened her mouth to protest, but Paco wasn’t finished,
“My superpower in my immunity to fakking bullshit.”
Catelyn spoke up quickly, “I’m not crying, it’s just all the
smoke.”
“You’re INSIDE!”
“Yes, well…” She fell silent again, and placed her hands on
the formica table-top, locking her fingers together as if in prayer.
Paco continued, “Second, you’re the one who fakking told him
you were getting married after you slept with him!” He was curling his hands into fists over and over as he spoke,
“How the fakk do you expect him to act?
You were the love of his fakking life!”
Paco wasn’t really angry, be he would be damned if he was going to let
her turn this all around on Hunter, as if he had done something wrong.
Catelyn shook her head, golden twirls bouncing across her
face, “So this is all my fault is it?
Are you taking the Mickey?”
Paco looked out the window again, distracted, it seemed to
him like it was nearly the tenth time this weekend Hunter was playing Drawing
Flies on the stereo, “No, but I am saying that you should share some of the
blame.”
Kate flattened her hands out on the table and looked down at
them, her fingers were showing some pale yellowing between the first and second
knuckle. She picked up the gloves. “I wear these white gloves so I don’t get
nicotine stains on my fingers, but just look at them… it doesn’t seem to help
anymore. No, I suppose you are right Wolfman.”
Paco Villa Lobos blinked.
It had been ages since anyone had addressed him by that particular
nick-name. “Nobody has called me
‘Wolfman” since high school, but of course I’m fakking right about this.” He squirmed his way out of the booth and
started fumbling through a box of cassette tapes. Paco never kept anything in its original case, or in any kind of
order alphabetical of otherwise, (a fact that drove Hunter bonkers every time
he visited Paco!) so it was always a struggle to find anything he might have
been looking for. Paco up-ended the
beat up cardboard box and dumped the tapes into the empty sink and began going
through them feverously.
“Do you need a hand over there?” Catelyn wanted to know.
“No, its fine I got it!”
Paco flipped the black cassette tape over in his hands, stepped to the
side door and shoved it open, leaving Catelyn sitting at the table, slipping
her smoking gloves back on.
“Oi!” she called after him, but he was already half way to
the picnic table where Bill and Hunter were drinking beer and discussing
tofu. She heard Paco say something
about Pixies being the greatest band in the world or something to that
effect. If anyone had asked her she
certainly would have disagreed with that particular statement, as she had
always been partial to bands like Squeeze, and Yazoo.
Paco was back in the RV, “Come on Cat, lets go eat a fakking
hot dog!”
Catelyn stood up and thought it was funny that no matter how
many times she corrected him, (“I prefer ‘Kate’ actually”) that it never seemed
to sink in with Paco. Or maybe he just
wasn’t listening. She stepped outside,
just in time to see Sara stumble over to the bushes and throw up. Oh shit, she thought, best go help
her with her hair!
* * *
“You don’t mind, do you Hunter?”
The next morning Hunter was staring at a scantily clad Sara
who lay beside him in the bunk above the Winnebago’s cockpit.
“Of course not.” How
could he? He rolled over and felt Sara
cuddle in closer, wiggling her ass into his morning wood. She was asleep in minutes, as Hunter lay
beside her, eyes wide, until eventually he too slipped off.
Sara awoke a few hours later and climbed out of the
bunk. She checked the clock in the tiny
galley; it read 10:17am. She then
padded barefoot to the back of the Winnebago and grabbed her little
suitcase. Sara pulled off her black
sports bra, shuffled out of her pyjama shorts, and stood naked for a moment,
letting the cool air give her gooseflesh.
She giggled mischievously to herself, knowing full well that if Hunter
was awake, that he might have been watching her, she looked over her shoulder
only to see him still asleep, his back facing her. She felt a pang of disappointment as she dug around to find her
deodorant stick and quickly gave her underarms a roll, she could feel the
prickliness of the hairs growing back after three days of not shaving, this got
her even more excited about getting back to the city. She fished out her green tartan mini-kilt, her last pair of clean
panties, and an oversized, somewhat threadbare, faded black jumper that had
been pulled on and off so many times that the neck hole had been stretched out
to such a degree, that it often slipped over a shoulder. She pulled the big sweater on over her naked
torso, then pulled on the panties and kilt.
Hunter woke up as Sara was getting the last of the buckles
fastened on her mini-kilt.
“Morning Hunter!”
“Hey sweets, how ya doing?”
“Awesome! Ready to
head home!”
Hunter nodded, this last day hadn’t come soon enough. He pulled on his black jeans, and what he
thought was the least smelly t-shirt from his army green rucksack. He ran some deodorant under his arms and
slid off the bunk. He stepped into his
boots, not bothering to lace them. Sara
was lacing up her ten hole Doc Martens when Hunter stepped out the door.
“Wait!” Sara called
out, “Hold the door!”
Hunter paused as Sara exited the RV, he shoved the door
closed and looked around the campsite.
To his amazement, practically everything was already packed up. Bill and Kate were folding up the tent, and
Paco was packing up the last of his gear up into a storage bay on the side of
the Winnebago.
Paco looked up, “Hunter!
Get your shit together! We’re
leaving in an hour!”
Bill called out in his best Richard E. Grant impersonation,
“An hour? I need at least three hours
for lunch!”
Paco stopped what he was doing and turned to Bill,
“Lunch? What lunch? There’s no fakking lunch!”
“Hey man, relax I’m quoting Withnail & I ferchrissakes! This whole weekend for me has been one big
homage after the next to my favourite film!”
Paco closed and locked the storage hatch, “I’ve never seen
it.”
Bill couldn’t believe it.
He dropped his end of the tent and started to walk away.
This did not go down at all well with Catelyn, “Oi! What are you playing at?”
Bill gave a dismissive wave of his hand, “Relax darlin’
it’ll get done.”
Catelyn threw down her end of the tent, red-faced with rage,
“OI! Listen here William, I’ve had just
about enough of your snide, passive aggressive, comments this weekend! You do NOT get to call me ‘darling’
right! I have a name, and you will use
it yeah?!” She was right up in his
space, eyes wide and angry, tears streaming down her cheeks. Bill put his hands up as if in surrender,
and took a step back, she looked totally demented, and he didn’t want any part
of that.
“Oh, hey Kate, I’m sorry, I…”
Catelyn took a look around and realized everybody was
looking at her. The trees felt like
they were closing in and she could barely breathe. She spotted Hunter standing by the RV. All at once things were clear to her. He was her touchstone, the reason she came out camping on this
long, nearly endless weekend of uncomfortable wretchedness. She wiped the tears from her face and
straightened up. She pulled the front
of her jacket down and shook the hair from her eyes, then went straight for
Hunter, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him from the campsite and down
toward the gravely road.
Paco watched them go and walked over to Bill, “What the fakk
was that all about?”
“None of my damn business,”
Bill said, “so, what everything I’ve been doing and saying to be funny
this weekend was completely lost in you?”
“It would seem so.”
“Awesome,” Bill said, not meaning it.
“Ah, whadareyagonnado?”
Hunter tried to pull his arm free, but found Catelyn must
have had some kind of serious kung-fu grip on him or something.
“Hey! What’s goin’
on?”
“Just walk with me for a moment.”
“Sure, but could you,” she let go of his arm, “thanks.”
Instead she took hold of his hand and started running,
pulling him along with her. Hunter
remembered a high school dance that seemed a century ago, sipping smuggled-in Southern
Comfort, and running down the hallways, through the trenches of paint
chipped lockers, always just one step ahead of the chaperoning teachers. Back then he was in the lead, pulling Kate
along, and the only thing in front of them was the future burning in the
distance like the western sun disappearing behind the Rocky Mountains, turning
everything golden. Now it was the
future, it was 1993, and they were still running, the western sky was grey with
clouds, and tiny puffs of dust and gravel burst into the air with every step.
Catelyn eventually slowed down as they reached a small green
space in the middle of the campground.
In the centre of it all, a roofed, half-walled cooking shack stood on a
concrete slab. A huge, beat up cast
iron, Buddha belly stove sat dominating it’s interior. A circle of picnic tables surrounded it, and
around back was a children’s playground, complete with slide, see-saw,
monkey-bars, merry-go-round, and a huge “A” frame swing set with well worn
wooden platforms attached to thick, heavy chains. Kate stopped at the swings and sat on the dried out wooden seat,
it’s paint long since worn away smooth by decades of butts both young and old,
sitting, swinging, and sliding on and off.
She wrapped her white gloved fingers around the heavy chains and looked
up at the steely grey clouds thickening in the gloom-bruised sky.
Hunter took the swing beside her and sat down hard, catching
his breath. They sat in silence for a
few minutes, Hunter staring down ant the dusty, compacted earth beneath his
feet. He tried to imagine how many
pairs of shoes had scraped the ground over the years. It was a pointless exercise of course, the camping area had been
around for thirty, possibly forty years, so it had be thousands, tens of
thousands, perhaps millions. How many
kids had broken arms, sprained ankles, or ground gravel into the palms of their
hands, or knees jumping from these very swings? He had no idea, what mattered was the present, the moment Catelyn
and he were sharing that exact yoctosecond.
Hunter looked up as finally she spoke.
“It’s funny but It just occurred to me that this could be
the last conversation we ever have.”
“What’s funny about that?”
Hunter asked.
“Not humorous, just… I don’t know, strange lets say.”
“Okay, whats the deal?
Why did you insist on coming out here with us?”
“I didn’t insist I just asked. Nicely. And Paco said I
could. Anyway, it has been a few years
since I last saw you, not counting that time downtown at the mall, when you
tried to hide from me, maybe four years is it?”
Hunter’s eyes glazed over, he remembered all right… coming
home from school for Christmas break, showing up at the front door of Kate’s
parents house, her elderly father answering the door…
“Can I help you young man?”
“I’m here to see Kate,” he walked past the old man,
uninvited, then down the steps towards her basement bedroom.
“Catelyn is entertaining a guest right now, perhaps you
could return at a later date?”
Hunter was already at the bottom of the stairs and right
outside Kate’s bedroom door, he knocked once and walked in.
“Hey Ka-“ The greeting caught in his throat, in front of
him, across the room on the bed, Kate is naked on her hands and knees getting a
right royal rogering by some tan ,blond,
super buff, shaved-chested, surfer dude.
“Hunter! Uh, it’s
no, uh, what it appears? Uh! Perhaps?”
The surfer dude smiles and continues pumping away, he
says in an Australian accent, “Actually, it is what it looks like there mate!”
Hunter chuckled a little at the memory, “What was his name
again? Chad? Chas?”
“Trevor,” Catelyn said, face flushing with embarrassment of
the memory, “Yes that was all a bit awkward wasn’t it?”
“I can laugh about it now,” Hunter said, “Okay so why this
old Arab guy? Why are you getting
married so quickly?”
“Omar and I have been together for almost a year, so it’s
hardly fast! And honestly did you
really believe I came out on this trip just to get back with you? After all these years?”
The clouds above were looking ominous, Hunter thought they
might be in the path of another May snowstorm.
“Fine, but why this guy? And why
not me? What’s wrong with me
anyway? I’m intelligent, I’m good
looking, I got a fuck site more talent than half the writers that get published
today…”
Catelyn began swinging, throwing her legs forward and
pumping them back, pulling with her arms, then just as quickly she stopped,
planter her feet in the hard packed dirt and skidding to a halt, “You’re an
artist Hunter, and no I’m not taking the Mickey either. You know I’ve read your work and always
enjoyed it, but I’ve just never had the temperament to be with an artist. Your highs are so very high and your lows,
so bloody rock bottom… I’m a person that needs stability in my life.”
Hunter was nodding, “Ah, of course now I get it, a rich old
guy! It totally makes sense.”
“Don’t say it like that, you’re making it sound so
lurid! He’s forty-one he’s not ‘old’
for god sakes!”
“And you’re twenty-two!”
The conversation was not going the way she had hoped, she
had to take control of it, make him see her side of things. “Besides it’s not about the money he makes,
it’s about security, and stability.
Omar’s a lovely man and I hope you can meet him some day.”
Hunter was gobsmacked, “What? Yeah that would be awesome wouldn’t it! Are you sure you’re not taking the Mickey?”
“I’m being honest with you Joseph, I came out here this
weekend because I really want you to be happy for me, and for us to hopefully
be friends again.” She was facing him,
hopeful eyes wide, but rimmed with red from the earlier tears.
Hunter sighed, it was over and there was very little left to
say, “No. I can’t be your friend Kate,
not anymore and to be honest I’m having a very hard time trying to be happy for
you right now, but maybe I’ll get there, eventually. Or maybe not at all. Time
will tell, it always does.”
Snowflakes began to fall from the dark grey sky, big, fat,
fluffy, heavy, wet snowflakes of the kind that always fall in the mountains
just when you think spring has finally arrived.
Hunter chuckled, then spoke without thinking, “This reminds
me of Macross episode 35 when Minmay is sitting on the swings as the snow is
falling, thinking about the man she wants to be with for the rest of her life.”
Kate looked at him, and shook her head. “Just for once all I wanted was an honest,
adult conversation with you and all you can think about are cartoons? And you wonder why we can’t be
together.” She regretted it the second
it came out of her mouth, but by then it was too late, the damage had been
done.
Hunter pushed himself off the wooden swing bench and stepped
away, heading back towards the campsite.
Clearly, this time there was nothing more to be said.
Kate looked away from him, down at her legs, a cold wind
blew in from the north ruffling her heavy, grey, winter school skirt. The heavy snowflakes began falling with
greater urgency as she gripped the chains a little tighter, an little harder,
dreading the ride back to the city, wondering if she would come out of this ill
fated expedition with any friendships intact at all. She stared out towards the mountaintops in silent contemplation
as the cool wind gave her legs the gooseflesh.
This was it. She had made her
choice and was satisfied with it, even if it meant she would never see Hunter,
Bill, or Paco again. She stood up from
the swing, the song Return by Siouxsie and the Banshees suddenly popped
into her head. She must have heard it
at some point on Hunter’s stereo this weekend.
She walked back through the blowing snow, back to the gravely road, and
followed Hunter back to the campsite.
Hunter dumped the last of the water from the beer cooler on
to the fire pit causing a massive gout of steam, smoke and ash to erupt, Mt.
St. Helens style from the pit. He
closed his eyes and turned his head as the brunt of it blew past his face. He stirred the ash with a long, thick
pointed branch, and seemed not to notice when he drew a face with X’s for eyes
in the sodden ash.
A half hour later they were on the highway headed back to
Calgary. Bill was passed out in the
back, and his snoring could be heard even over the road noise. He had been asleep ten minutes in, and would
a few weeks later comment to Hunter that it was the best sleep he had all
weekend. Catelyn and Sara sat in the
booth playing noughts and crosses on a yellow legal pad, while Hunter rode
shotgun up front. As the outskirts of
the city hove into view, the sun finally cracked through the dense meringue of
grey clouds revealing a bright azure sky.
“…so the idea came to me in a dream, and its about this kid,
he’s an orphan see, and one day when he’s like twelve or something, he gets an
invite to this special school in the Rocky Mountains or something, and get
this, it turns out it’s a magic school for wizards and witches, and the orphan
kid, maybe he’s called James or something, ends up getting in all sorts of
adventure through Jr. and Sr. high school.
Paco shook his head and looked doubtful, “And this is
what? A kids book?”
Hunter nodded, “Yeah, at first, but I’m not gonna write down
to them, it’ll be just like my regular stuff, only without all the sex and
swearing. The fantastical subject
matter will be for kids yeah, so what do you think?”
Paco stared straight ahead at the road, “It’s a fakking
terrible idea.”
Hunter was shocked, he thought it was a great idea, with
huge potential, “Really? Why don’t you
like it?”
“Ah, kids books don’t sell!
You gotta be true to yourself!
Keep writing what you know!”
Hunter nodded, “Yeah, you’re right. Wizard school in the mountains! As if anyone would want to read about that!”
* * *
Bill Williams and Joe Cornelius Hunter sat on their
respective ends of the dusty, beige patio sofa gazing out across the spring
skyline. Bill was in the corner, jammed
as deep as he could get himself into the gritty cushions, the farthest he could
get from the wrought iron railing, thus in his mind just about safe from
accidentally toppling over the edge to his doom. Hunter never suffered such fears, and would sometimes even sit up
on the railing just to torment Bill.
Hunter took a puff from his chocolate aroma Phillies Blunt
Cigar, “So do you think with all the extra weight from the cooler and the beer
that the structural integrity of the balcony could be in some way compromised?”
Bill blanched, “Do.
Not. Even. Joke about that.” He finished his beer and pulled another from the cooler in front
of them, being careful not to slam the lid closed.
Hunter grabbed another beer and slammed the lid shut just to
see Bill’s reaction: a twitch, closed eyes, a deep breath, and a scowl in
Hunter’s direction. He smiled,
scratching at the mosquito bites on his arms, “Well, that was a dreadful
weekend in the country!”
Bill lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, “Without a doubt,
but at least we have plenty of leftover beer.”
“Nice,” Hunter nodded, “you always see the good in the bad,
I like that.” He raised his can to
Bill, who did the same.
“So,” said Bill after a swig, “what have we learned?”
“Never trust a British chick?” Hunter answered too quickly, “Why did I think it was a good idea
to try to get back with her?”
Bill exhaled cigarette smoke towards the sky, “Because you
never learn?”
“Because I never learn, yes.”
“You can’t go home again Hunter, but you can hang out there
for the weekend and get your end in.”
Hunter took a long thoughtful draught from his beer, “But at
what price my friend, at what price?”
Bill took a final drag from his smoke and crushed it out in
the glass Pied Pickle ashtray the boys had liberated on a previous misadventure,
“Well, live and learn my friend… at least we lived!”
“There’s that charming optimism again! Yes, at least we lived… but you know with
all the mosquito bite I took I think I might have malaria!”
“You should be so lucky!”
High up on the rooftop of a building across the street from
London House Flats, something invisible watched. A shimmer, that would have appeared to Bill and Hunter as nothing
more than a heat mirage, flickered, flashed, then disappeared…
Next Time! An All
New Lond Ho One Shot: An Evening At The ‘Corn!
