General
One I am thirty-nine years old and my mother just died. At last, my life can begin. I use the money left to me in the will to self-publish a book of essays and take them round to the shops that sell books. I offer, in my magnanimous way, to give it to them for f ree, so all it will cost them is a bit of shelf space, but even that is too much for them to give up. They all say no to me. So I publish it on the web, for anyone to see or read or copy or plagiarize, and that earns me some e-mails, such as: You are to die and burn hell [sic]. You are fucked. You should die. Fuck you. Or this: Who told you you could write? My ten year old got an A+ on a story about his dog. That’s real writing. I’d rather read the story about his dog my ten year old wrote. Or this: Increase your pen1s 3x guaranteed. It doesn’t matter. I have killed the only woman I have ever loved.
01
Monday, August 23, 1993
Bernie Donatello held his breath and jiggled the accelerator pedal. The old truck coughed, jerked, and almost stalled. He yanked his foot off and jammed the clutch in, then tried it again, easing down on the pedal as he slipped the clutch out, praying mechanically, “Holy Mary, Mother of God, blessed is the fruit of thy womb …” His forehead was beaded with sweat, his jaw rigid. The muscles in his right leg were so tight they almost cramped. The truck lurched, coughed, then finally caught and jerked forward, easing out of the dark tunnel mouth of the bridge.
A cone of light flooded the doorway of the empty Customs shed as the truck inched past. Bernie caught a glimpse in the mirror of a uniformed man lurking in the shadows. The truck hiccuped again, faltered, then slid forward, finally slipping out of the bridge like a sick worm oozing out of a metal hole into the wet Canadian night. He hauled the steering wheel to the left, turning the rig toward Bridge Street, checking his mirrors again to make sure the trailer was okay. As the end of the rig cleared the bridge, he saw a shadow flit through the light and disappear into the shed.
Bernie started breathing again. He didn’t know what worried him more—the old rig breaking down, or getting jammed in the little bridge. He knew just how it would feel—he’d run it through his mind so many times—the screech of metal on metal as the rig suddenly jerked to a stop. He’d be trapped like a rat. It was bad enough worrying about the damned guard without having to worry about breaking down or getting stuck. What the hell would he do then? Jump out and run for it, he figured—hightail it back to America and leave the damn truck for Sal to worry about. It would serve the son of bitch right, too.
He breathed deeply, trying to slow down his racing heart. The headlights reflected off the puddles on the greasy black asphalt of Bridge Street. A sharp pain shot through his stomach, and he got that funny taste in his mouth. How much longer could he take this? Every time he came across, it was the same damn thing. It didn’t matter what Sal told him about it all being fixed. It didn’t even matter how many times he made the trip and nothing happened. A million things could go wrong. The truck could get jammed up. Or break down, more likely. They could change the Customs guy, put him on another shift at the last minute. Then what would happen? Bernie would eat it big time, that’s what. And Sal would be gone so fast, all you’d see was a little dust cloud, like in those cartoons.
He thought about being taken under the ground. He tried not to, but he couldn’t help it. Ever since that time he and Edie took the bus up to Toronto, he couldn’t get that picture out of his head. He hated going on the bus because he knew they’d get hassled, but she was worried about him drinking up there and she didn’t want to take the car. She’d put her foot down and that was that. He was right, though. They always stopped you when you were on the bus.
Excerpt from the Prologue
The summer before Will Edwards was kidnapped in Colombia, a medicine man told him he held the spirit of the butterfly. That was fine, but Will had participated in the healing ceremony in hopes of easing his inflamed knees, not because of an urge to fly.
Jake Across-the-Mountain was a reputable healer. People from Monarch Valley claimed that fire jumped from his hands. Jake told Will he didn’t know if he could erase the effects of thirty years of hard-rock diamond drilling, but he’d give it a go. Both men agreed this was not to be a sacred sweat—Will did not wish to offend Jake by pretending he was a blood brother in search of a miracle cure. It was simply a case of bad knees bringing friends together on a late August afternoon.
By mid-ceremony, Will’s concentration had crashed. With streaming eyes and a throat as dry as the sizzling juniper before him, he could no longer hear Jake moaning away in a language more akin to wind and tree than human speech. He thought only of escape, of getting outside and freeing himself from the smoke-filled tepee. When Jake revived the embers with a second handful of juniper, Will fell into a coughing fit that nearly rocked him off his fake-fur car seat cover. He began to wonder if this healing ceremony would kill him.
Will wished he could believe in the magic of the ceremony, but the ritual seemed sadly out of touch with the present day. When his mother was alive, the ancient ways held power. Her Cree medicines worked in harmony with the older, slower pace of life.
So when Jake opened his eyes and looked through his transition lenses set in their allergy-free, flexible titanium frame and asked Will to describe what he felt, Will stared back blankly. He didn’t want to admit that his legs were cramping and he couldn’t breathe. Jake waited. Will recalled a soft brush against his cheek, but he assumed that a sign of healing would be… well, bigger. His knees still hurt as he awkwardly hauled himself upright. He shook his head and grinned at Jake. No. Nothing.
Jake ducked out of the tepee and held the flap open for Will. Instantly revived by the flood of fresh air, Will greedily sucked buckets of air into his singed lungs. The summer sun soaked the men in gold as it slid behind the purple mountains beyond the river. They meandered along a path through Jake’s backyard—a tangle of tall grasses, timothy, and wildflowers. Giant yellow swallowtailed butterflies, copper, blue, white, grey, sulphurous yellow butterflies, tiny elfin butterflies, speckled, checkered, angle-winged, frayed, and ragged butterflies surrounded them. The dusty golden light shimmered with their collective wing movement.
Jake absorbed the sight. “So it is true,” he said.
Will looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
“You have the spirit of the butterfly.”
Within a week, the inflammation in Will’s knees subsided. He golfed a seventy-eight and got his first hole-in-one. A thousand golf swings later, Will Edwards accepted the foreman’s position from the owner of a small drilling company operating in Colombia.
Charlie Salter Mysteries 4-Book Bundle
Excerpt from Chapter One
This is how we celebrate our last Valentine’s Day together: I draw a heart in spermicide on my diaphragm. The gel forms a protective seal that keeps him away. Inside my body it joins the conference of chemicals, circulates, makes friends. I’m here to keep her from getting pregnant, it boasts. To which the chemotherapy laughs, I don’t think you need to worry.
Hers is the same voice that says, “Your immunoglobulins came back normal,” that says, “Your lungs sound healthy,” that asks, “Are you taking a multivitamin?” that informs me, “You have a nice cervix.” I wonder what it would be like to have a mean cervix.
Hers is the same voice that says, “At twenty-four, your chances of having breast cancer are very, very slim,” that says, “Having lumpy breasts is normal,” that says, “If you were in your forties … in your thirties, even, I’d do a biopsy. But we might just want to sit on this one for awhile. Wait and see.”
Justin’s stopping—starting keeps me from sleeping. He cranes his neck to see around a semi, fluid dribbling from its exhaust pipe. I change the radio station.
“When are the dedications? I thought … are we out of range?”
“You missed them. You were sleeping.”
“I was never sleeping.”
This is how my father reacts to me introducing them: by asking Justin for haggis. “I’ve always wanted to try it. My ex-wife, uh, Leah’s mother, would never … well, you know. She just wasn’t very … ”
I interrupt, “I think it looks like something that came out of a seasick cat.”
My father says, “Why would there be a seasick cat?”
This is how they bond. Just them. Old dad, new boyfriend, Scottish cuisine.
In Invermere, the gas station rejects the credit card for our joint account. “It’s probably just a mix-up at the bank,” Justin says. “You should call them.”
I say, “I should call them?”
He uses his private card, from a separate bank, which swipes successfully. He buys the melt-in-your-mouth soft Cheetos, beef jerky, an eight-pack of Kotex, $20.03 worth of gas. “You can just pay me back,” he says.
I say, “I can just pay you back?”
His is the same voice that says, “I haven’t had a real girlfriend, ever,” that asks, “Can I kiss you?” that imitates Oscar the Grouch when he’s pissed me off, that recites quasi-sexual haikus on our eleven-month anniversary. “Tell your friends your boyfriend writes you poetry.”
His is the same voice that says, “You think you feel what? Come here. They feel fine to me. Perfect. As usual. Maybe even bigger.”
There is no such thing as not knowing. I knew from the moment I dropped the insert from the box of tampons, before I unfolded it, before I stared at the cartoon women holding their arms above their heads, squeezing their nipples, moving their fingers in larger and larger concentric circles. Looking for what I knew was there.
