Heroes Page 11

  “I guess I came to the conclusion that that would probably be more your job than mine.”

  “And how do you figure that?”

  “Well, you’re his girlfriend, right? Maybe you should keep a little shorter leash on him. You might want to try and get him to cut back a little on the booze, for starters. You also might discourage him from bringing back guests to his house after the bars close down. I’m sure I’m not the first person to take advantage of Harry’s hospitality.”

  As if testing out the idea aloud, “You think I should tell Harry not to drink anymore,” Gloria said matter-of-factly. She went to the stove to top off her cup.

  “Does that sound like such a bad idea to you?” Bayle said. “Look at him. Do you think that the amount of drinking he does is somehow good for him?” Bayle set his laptop down on the floor.

  “It’s not that,” Gloria said. “It’s just that I’m a little bit confused about what I’m supposed to be telling him to do instead.”

  “Instead of what?” Bayle said.

  “Instead of drinking.”

  Gloria slowly steeped her tea bag in her cup and watched Bayle’s face.

  Bayle threw up his hands. “Fine. Whatever. Whatever works for the two of you. I’ve got three days left in this crummy little town and then I get on with my real life. Believe me, a year from now I’ll be in my little office at St. Jerome’s quietly doling out As, Bs, and Cs, and the last thing that’ll be on my mind will be Harry Davidson’s drinking problem.” He picked up his computer by the handle. “Like I said, tell Harry thanks for the drink. I plan to be pretty busy for the next couple of days, so if I don’t manage to see him again before I leave town, let Harry know it’s been a pleasure and that I was sorry to hear about him and the team.”

  Gloria stiffened to attention. “What do you mean you’re sorry about him and the team?”

  “About the boycott,” Bayle said.

  “What boycott?”

  “Harry didn’t tell you?”

  “We don’t talk about each other’s work. What boycott?”

  Bayle looked at the clock hanging on the wall over the stove. “Look, it’s nearly three and I’ve got to be up by eleven for my interview. I should start walking right now if I want to get to sleep before five. I’m sure Harry’ll tell you all about it in the morning. I’d appreciate it if you could just point me in the direction of Main.”

  “I’m gonna drive you home and you’re gonna tell me all that you know about this boycott business,” Gloria said. “Tonight.”

  “Look, it’s late, I can walk,” Bayle said.

  “Nobody’s doubting the fact that you can walk, but right now you’re getting a ride home in my car. Let me get my keys.”

  Still in Davidson’s driveway, Gloria’s well-travelled yellow Volkswagen Bug taking its time deciding whether or not it wanted to run, Bayle turned on the radio and flipped to AM 590, WUUS, in the hope of catching the tale end of the I.M. Wright show and coming at least a little bit closer to understanding his inexplicable hold upon the local populace. Maybe it’s like Hegel, he considered, no one really believing a word of what he says, but people continuing to read him faithfully anyway just because it’s fun trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about.

  The car finally coughing and shaking to her satisfaction, Gloria snapped off the radio.

  “I’d appreciate it if I could just listen to this for a couple of minutes,” Bayle said. “It’s sort of like a hobby for me.”

  “You start talking,” Gloria said, putting the car in gear, the radio staying off. “And you go nice and slow now and tell me all about this boycott. You can listen to that foolishness some other time. Right now, we’ve got more important things to discuss.”

  21

  NOT QUITE sobered up enough yet to be technically hungover, hatless and not the umbrella sort, Bayle clanked two quarters into the newspaper box next to the bus stop near The Range in search of cheap cover. A hard, warm rain set the tone for the 1:30 interview with Duceeder he was late for.

  Newspaper folded in two, halo-like over his head, the bus hissed to a stop in front of him, door opening inward as it was still slowing down.

  “You live in a cave or something?” the driver said. “They’ve been calling for this rain for nearly two days now.”

  “I didn’t get a chance to look at the paper yesterday,” Bayle said, steeping up and dripping into the bus. “Busy. Working. You know.”

  The driver cranked the door closed behind him and shifted into gear. Looking in the round mirror hanging above his head at the image of Bayle with his pimple-provoked red honker head-back applying his eye drops, “Looks like you had a busy night,” he said. “Busy, working, I mean. You know.”

  Bayle blinked several times like the pharmacist had instructed him to and briefly considered whether he could possibly look as bad as he felt. Fuzzy teeth. Sour stomach. Mushy head. Not a chance.

  “What line of work you in again?” the driver asked.

  “Journalism. For the next seventy-two hours, journalism.”

  “You write for the local paper, do you?” the driver said, looking again in the mirror suspended high over his seat.

  “No. Out-of-town assignment.”

  “That’s good,” the driver said.

  “Why’s that?” Bayle said.

  Windshield wipers flapping, drip, drip, drop after drop of rainwater fell off Bayle’s nose and chin onto the front page of the unfolded Eagle lying across his knees.

  “You haven’t looked at your paper yet today, have you?” the driver said.

  “No, actually the only reason I bought it was for ....”

  Bayle’s voice trailed off, eyes falling on today’s headline — 6 INJURED AS EAGLE BUILDING IS ROCKED BY BOMB BLAST-Local Militia Group Claims Responsibility — mind made quick to discover that C.A.C.A.W., Concerned and Armed Citizens for the American Way, had sent six Eagle staffers to the hospital late the night before because of its spread of “poisonous liberal lies,” Harry’s articles about the safety infractions at the Bunton Center arena a prime example of “anti-free-enterprise propaganda concocted by the socialist media.”

  Bayle set the newspaper back down on his lap and stared out the bus window. Football-field-sized puddles swelled the surrounding farmland with more of the steady afternoon rain. A farmer in overalls and a Warriors baseball cap stood with arms crossed underneath the awning of his porch watching the afternoon traffic and a full day of plowing pass him by. The small advertising board sitting in the middle of the muddy front lawn of a U-Haul company promised free coffee and friendly service. Three cows in a small fenced-in field chewed their cud, ignoring the sound of the passing bus. Bayle looked down at the paper again, the violence of the headline he read over and over utterly belied by the simple scenes outside his window that were all that he could see.

  Bomb blast. Building is rocked by bomb blast.

  Giving or taking a few minutes, one hour later last night and he might have been one of the injured. Or worse.

  Undergoing the sort of earnest existential stock-taking that the falling of the Canadian dollar or a fierce winter wind coming off Lake Ontario never could have inspired, Bomb blast, Bayle thought. Building is rocked by bomb blast. One hour later last night and maybe me no more, he thought. Me no more. Me. No more. Me. No.

  “Okay.”

  Bayle looked up. “Okay?”

  “Okay, this is your stop,” the driver said. The bus was idling in front of the arena entrance.

  “Sorry, I ....” Bayle gathered up his newspaper and folders of notes and shambled toward the bus’s front exit.

  The driver rested his hand on the handle to the closed door, looked Bayle up and down. “You all right?”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Bayle said. “Just ... yeah, I’m fine, I’m fine.” He rubbed his pimple-inflamed nose; winced.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t be working so much.”

  “I’m fine, really, believe me.”

  �
�Don’t worry about me,” the bus driver said. “You’re the only one you’ve got to convince of that.” He pulled open the bus door. Rain pounded against the walkway in front of the arena so hard it bounced straight back up.

  “It’s still raining,” Bayle said.

  “It never stopped.”

  22

  HE MANAGED to get the information he came for.

  For thirty minutes Bayle kept his head lowered to the notepad on his knee, writing down everything Duceeder said about the necessity of educating the public in a non-traditional hockey market about the very rudiments of the game itself. Every time he felt his attention to the task at hand begin to waver, his mind a messy montage of the Eagle cover shot of the bomb blast, Davidson’s pathetically drooling snoozing, even Duceeder’s own fax-denying smirking face of the night before, Bayle told himself to keep his eye on the puck. Get the quotes, do the article, go home, get the doctorate, get the job, get the girl, get a life.

  Duceeder’s voice filtered back into consciousness. Bayle patted his suit jacket where he kept Smith’s folded fax. He pressed his pen harder to the page. Keep your eye on the puck, Bayle.

  “Take our fifth or sixth home game back in ’88, our first season down here,” Davidson said. “One of our players gets his third goal of the game, the first hat trick in Warrior history. Naturally, somebody in the crowd who knows a bit about the game throws his hat onto the ice. Pretty straightforward stuff, right? Except that our security staff had been given strict guidelines before the season started about immediately removing anybody from the rink if they started acting up. You know, the usual stuff: fighting, drunken behaviour, throwing crap onto the ice, that sort of thing. So of course what does security do but run right down to row seven and cart this poor guy off, probably the only guy in the stands who knew what a hat trick was. And we just tossed him into the street on his behind like it was nobody’s business. Anyway, we gave this fella free passes to the next five home games, a Warrior baseball hat, and the whole Warrior organization’s sincerest apologies.”

  Taking it all down, Bayle said that that was good, that that was a funny story. Just the sort of thing his editor was looking for. Thanks, he said.

  “No problem,” Duceeder said, sipping from a large WUUS coffee mug. “Glad to be of help.”

  Interview apparently over, Duceeder stood up and clicked on the radio sitting on top of his filing cabinet while Bayle busied himself with gathering up his things. A commercial for a local steakhouse that offered in-house action movies and all the hot towels you could use saw Bayle almost to the door. Advertisement done, over the suddenly familiar music beginning its slow fade:

  Welcome to today’s program, folks, my name is I.M. Wright. I want to start up today’s show by answering a question that a caller put to me before we actually came on the air. Yes, caller, it is a sad thing that the liberal media has once again decided to portray well-meaning Christians as somehow the problem with our society and not, as it should be doing, trumpeting it as the only real answer.

  Bayle’s ears and eyes stuck to the little white radio. Back behind his desk now, Duceeder put on a pair of black halfmoon reading glasses and noted Bayle standing there listening, but eventually gave his attention over to some paperwork on his desk.

  In making C.A.C.A.W. out as an extremist group when you’ll never read a mention of those babykillers uptown at Planned Parenthood, you once again get to see the Eagle’s true agenda come shining through: Christian bashing, plain and simple.

  “They tried to blow up a fucking building!” Bayle said, open left hand gesturing toward the radio. Duceeder peered over his reading glasses at Bayle, the radio, then back at Bayle again. Bayle’s hand stayed extended as he stood there oblivious and motionless, continuing to listen. Duceeder’s eyes stayed on Bayle.

  I tell you, folks, it’s real difficult for an ordinary Joe like me to understand how a group of God-fearing Americans — a little misguided, perhaps, a little overzealous in their desire to stand up against the socialist threat and do the right thing, maybe — but avowed Christians and patriotic citizens nonetheless, can be labelled extremists, while the baby butchers downtown get off scot-free.

  “Avowed Christians, my ass,” Bayle said. “The last time I read the Ten Commandments it didn’t say, Thou Shalt Not Kill — Unless Those Murdered are Those You Happen to Disagree With, In That Case Bomb the Hell Out of Them.’” Arms folded tight across his chest, Bayle shook his head slowly but firmly from side to side, steady ready for Wright’s next oral assault.

  Duceeder cleared his throat, didn’t get Bayle’s attention, did it again — louder — and finally did. Bayle shook himself free of the radio and looked at Duceeder looking at Bayle over the top of his reading glasses.

  “Anything else?” Duceeder said.

  Bayle seemed stunned by the interruption.

  “I said, ’Anything else?’” Duceeder said.

  A moment’s indecision, but only a moment’s. “You see this?” Bayle demanded, unfurling today’s newspaper, pointing to the headline on the front page.

  “Yeah, so?”

  “I could’ve been there. An hour earlier and that could’ve been me.”

  “What were you doing at the Eagle at that hour?”

  Bayle had to think for a second. “Dropping off Davidson’s story.”

  Duceeder’s face suddenly filled with smile. “Oh, that’s right,” he said. “That old fax machine just didn’t seem to want to work for Harry last night, did it?”

  “I could’ve been killed, Duceeder!” Bayle yelled, shaking the paper. “I could be flying back to Canada right now in a fucking body bag!”

  “Okay, okay, but —”

  “But what?” Bayle shouted. “But what?”

  “But why the hell are you telling all this to me?”

  Bayle didn’t have an answer.

  A streak of swift silver passed by him in the hallway heading in the direction of the front door of the arena.

  “Gloria!” Bayle said, taking off down the hall. “Wait up!”

  23

  GLORIA DIDN’T know any more about the players’ boycott than what Bayle had told her the night before. Samson couldn’t tell her anything other than “Apparently the players have conducted a vote of some sort and decided they aren’t speaking to Mr. Davidson anymore. Naturally, I’m very sorry.” She knew he wasn’t lying, knew that the players had held a meeting to prohibit team contact with Davidson, but she also knew that there had to be more to it than that. In her experience, hockey players couldn’t be expected to spell “puck” even if you spotted them the P and the K. Obviously someone must have put them up to it.

  “Duceeder,” Bayle said.

  “Duceeder,” Gloria seconded. She was also just as positive about why Duceeder would be behind the boycott.

  “He’s always had it in for Harry,” she said. “Throw in those articles Harry wrote about the Bunton Center that have got the owners so upset and threatening to leave town and Duceeder’s just got to be the one. Besides, he’s the G.M. He can do anything he wants to the players.”

  “That bastard,” Bayle said.

  “But at least we know what’s going on now,” Gloria said. “And the truth shall make you free.”

  “New Testament?” Bayle said.

  “Harry Davidson,” she answered.

  Gloria asked Bayle if he wanted a ride back to The Range and Bayle said that he guessed he wouldn’t mind, but only if it wasn’t too much trouble. Gloria told him that if it was too much trouble she wouldn’t have asked, so Bayle said, Yes, in that case then he would, he would like a ride. They pushed their way through the arena doors, the one on the left aluminum-covered from shoulder to shoe, the one on the right in tweed jacket and blue jeans. The rain had relented slightly during the hour or so Bayle had spent inside the arena; it was still coming down, but only steadily, not in a torrent anymore.

  Gloria started up the Volkswagen, flipped on the windshield wipers. “You want to, you ca
n put on the radio if you like. Wouldn’t want to be the one to stand between you and your hobby.”

  “Thanks anyway,” Bayle said, “but I think I’ve had about all the I.M. Wright I can handle for today.”

  “Then I expect you wouldn’t mind if ...” I Leaning across him, the tips of her braless breasts underneath her costume just touching, faintly dragging across his knees, Gloria took a cassette out of the glove compartment and slipped it into the tape deck. A burst of airy strings flooded the small automobile like the pleasant shock of sudden sunlight on an up-to-then overcast day.

  “I know this,” Bayle said. It was the sort of hummable piece of classical music even the non-musical like Bayle had heard a hundred times before. “Mozart? No, Brahms. No, wait. Vivaldi? The Four Seasons?”

  “Bach. Concerto number five in F major.”

  Bayle pursed his lips, nodded his head a few rapid times as if recognizing the obviousness of his mistake. Recognizing no such thing, “That was your music at Harry’s place?” he said.

  “I keep my portable stereo over at his apartment. It keeps me from just having to cart it back and forth all the time.”

  Bayle wanted to ask how a woman who drove home from her job outfitted in a B-movie alien outfit and who made her living inciting frothing farm hands at hockey games to cheer louder and louder for the home team had managed to cultivate an appreciation for Bach concertos. While he was at it, he would have also liked to ask where she’d learned how to figure-skate. His own mention of the harassed Harry, however, pushed Bayle’s mind back onto more weighty subjects.

  “Did Harry tell you how close we came to being at the newspaper last night when that bomb went off?” he said.

  “No,” Gloria answered.

  Bayle couldn’t tell if the expression of intense concentration on Gloria’s face was the result of the wet highway in front of her, the swirling music on the tape player, or the significance of Bayle’s question.