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Gil is rattled, but it's obvious God is watching over him. He could be behind bars. He could be drowned. Or even worse, his son. Gil has certainly learned a few things on his foray into the world of human smuggling. And not only that he should always bring a change of clothes.  

Transcript

I went in through the basement and changed my clothes as soon as I got to the house. Fortunately I had a washroom down there too. I don’t know if I can describe how good it felt to get those jeans off, and into a warm shower. I washed off as quick as I could. I had already told Melvin to bring down a change of clothes. I left my less-than-clean jeans and underwear out by the door, where they would never see the inside of my house again. Then I realized that someone might see them so I ran back out in my underwear and threw them in the tall grass. 

I could hear everyone walking around upstairs when I went back in. I was still vibrating a little from fear. The worst was over, but we could still be caught. For all I knew there might be border patrol on the way to my house at that very moment. 

When I went upstairs the first thing I noticed was that the kids had livened up a bit, although they still seemed a little shell-shocked. I remembered that I had a small box of Park’s old toys out in the shed, but before I put my boots back on I saw that Melvin had already brought them in. They were in rough shape, but young kids don’t care about that. Melvin was a hard case, but he always had a soft spot for children. That’s probably the reason, in spite of all his faults, he and Park were close. How could you not love a father who spent two weeks helping you build a tree house with painted wooden clapboard, a balcony, and lighting? How could you not love a father who spent six months helping you build a float for the Christmas parade on a brand new twenty-one-foot double-axle aluminum trailer that he couldn’t afford? Park was only ten years old at the time, but by the time they were finished, he knew more about carpentry than half the men around. That same winter Melvin turned his back garden into a hockey rink, even though Park didn’t have much interest in hockey. He spent hours playing Legos with him when he was a little boy. Now that I think about it, Melvin was probably a better father than me in that way.

You know something I’ve figured out? Telling this story is helping me understand other people and myself better than I ever did before. I don’t know, it’s something about saying it out loud that makes me understand things better. I heard someone say before that language was a tool, and I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. But I think I understand now. 

So anyway.  

It was nice to be able to actually see everyone’s face. Liza was short, round, and tough, but the blond girl, April, she was beautiful. Even in her three-layer thick clothes, no make-up, and probably days with no sleep, she was beautiful. I might be an ugly old fart, but I’m still a warm-blooded male. 

“So what happens now?” I said. Everyone was still there, including Melvin, who I was hoping would leave. It was no trouble to see that the two women hated him, so what was he sticking around for? He had what he wanted. 

“I’m sorry,” Liza said. “I’m usually not this forward, but do you have something to eat? The bit of food we brought with us we gave to the kids. It’s been a while.” 

“How long is a while?” Melvin said, pushing over pen and paper. 

He didn’t even have to explain. Days, she wrote. I feel like I haven’t eaten in days. All they gave us on the boat was water and not even enough of that. It was windy so it took longer than we expected, and everyone got seasick. Most of us spent most of the time on deck, trying not to get washed overboard as we threw up everything inside of us, which in the end only made us more hungry and dehydrated. They had plenty of food but they wouldn’t give the adults any. The captain gave a little bit to the kids. One guy died. We don’t really know why. I can’t see him dying of starvation in a couple days. Maybe he was just dehydrated?

“Good God,” Reverend Tom said. 

“What did they do with the…him?” I said. 

Threw him over, she wrote. 

We just stared at her in shock. None of us knew what to say.   

It’s probably been close to three days, April wrote in the silence. She was sitting at the table in the kitchen, and she just looked exhausted. As if she was going to pass out at the table. 

“Three days!” Melvin said. “Jesus…” He darted to the cupboards and started hauling out food, but I had not gotten groceries in a while and I was never really into snacks anyway. He found a half bun of bread and grabbed the margarine out of the fridge. I did have a few oranges and apples though, which I gave to them first. Melvin started frying up baloney too.

“What’s that?” April said.

“Low-Cust baloney.” 

“Low-cost baloney? What could it possibly be made of if it’s cheaper than regular baloney?” 

“No, Low-Cust, it’s a brand name here in Canada. It’s made with locusts. Good stuff. Way better than that fake beef baloney. I don’t trust that fake beef.”  

“I finds it sweeter,” I said. 

“He finds it cheaper too,” Melvin said, grinning.  

Real beef is a treat for me now. I can only afford it once in a while. No doubt, shutting down the torture farms was a good thing, but I sure miss real pork chops and steaks. I still get a moose when a license is available, but there’s so many people after real meat now, that the hunting lottery almost feels like the real lottery. I haven’t had a moose roast in years. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. I’m not too bad with a rifle, but I never did get the hang of a bow. 

As the baloney was frying in the pan Melvin washed his hands and started cutting all the bread into slices. Which wasn’t easy with one arm. “Dad don’t buy snacks,” he said, “but I’m sure this will taste good enough after three days.” Then he buttered the bread and put on the kettle. 

“Coffee or tea?” he said. “It’s only that ol’ instant stuff, but…” 

“We’ll both have tea,” Liza said. 

I looked in the fridge for more. The baby had stopped crying because April was nursing it. Reverend Tom was too embarrassed to look in her general direction, even when she spoke to him. Meanwhile, Melvin didn’t even seem to notice. 

When the ladies started eating I could tell they were making an effort not to look like starved gulls, but I suppose it’s hard to hide it when you’re that hungry. When the baloney was fried up Melvin gave it to the kids with a little ketchup on the side and some milk. 

“What is this, Mommy?” the little boy asked when Melvin put the baloney on a plate in front of him.

“You don’t know what that is?” Melvin said. “That’s what we call six-legged steak.”

“What kind of cows have six legs?” the boy asked. 

“The kind that jumps around in the grass little fella,” Melvin said, hopping around the kitchen like a fool with his broken arm. The little boy laughed. 

“He’s lying to you,” Liza said. “There’s no such thing as six-legged cows.” 

“I was just having fun with him,” Melvin said. 

The smallest boy with a big ring of milk on his mouth said, “When do we go to our new home?”

“Soon,” Liza said.  

Are our friends coming here or are we meeting them at your place? April wrote to Reverend Tom. 

“My place,” the Reverend said, then wrote, We didn’t want to invite too many people as it might look suspicious. 

“I appreciated the meal,” April said when she finished, “but I’d like to go there if we can. I’m so exhausted I can barely think straight.” 

“We sure can,” the Reverend said and got up to put on his boots. Then he wrote, We should get home before sunrise anyway. This has been a trying night.

“What you saw was the best of it,” the oldest boy said. Everyone stared at him in surprise. We didn’t even realize he had been reading the messages. 

“Out of the mouths of babes,” the Reverend said. 

Even with that remark the kids were abnormally quiet, and I think that bothered me more than anything. Even the baby. I had to wonder what they had seen in the last few days to make them act more like grown-ups than kids. 

As they were all leaving I went in for a hug with Liza, the friendliest of the two girls, but she shrank back from me like I had COVID-26. So instead we just awkwardly bowed at each other. 

I felt so foolish that when I turned to Tom I stuck out my left hand instead of my right. Meanwhile he must have felt bad that she turned down my hug so he leaned in for a pity hug while I was trying to shake his hand, so he also stopped himself and shook my left hand with his right hand, which is also awkward.

I was shy when I was young, but I always liked hugging people, probably because most people didn’t want to hug me. As a Walmart greeter I would have hugged every person that came in the store if I had a choice. But some people don’t like to be touched at all, and I understand that. Reverend Tom wasn’t one of those people. I was mad at him for convincing my son to put his life and freedom at risk, but now that I had done it myself, and everything had worked out (I hoped) I just couldn’t hold on to the anger. Reverend Tom was a good man. And I’m too lazy to hold a grudge anyway.

When they left the house, Melvin and I sat in silence at the table. Then he took out his palm and started scrolling through it. 

“What are you looking at?” I said. 

Seeing if the money got deposited, he wrote. 

They just got here! 

Well, you never know. 

Theyre not even at the Reverends place yet. What makes you think they even got their palms? They probably threw them away. I hope they throwed them away.” 

 “They were supposed to.” 

Well how would they have the money transferred yet? 

Friends and family. You never know. 

All I could do was shake my head.

“What was it like?” he said, looking up from his palm. 

I wrote, It was the worst thing I ever did in my life. I wouldnt do it again if you paid me. 

No one wouldn’t do it if you didn’t pay them. “You’re nervous as a cat anyway.” 

The Reverend didnt get any money. 

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

“Why do you say that?” 

I heard the church is involved more than everyone realizes. 

“No, I don’t think breaking federal law is part of his job.” 

Melvin made a zipping motion on his mouth for me to stop talking out loud. 

“Oh will you give it up,” I said. “If they’re tracking or listening they knows it all by now anyway.” 

“How many times do I have to tell you? No one in particular is listening, but the palm is. Key words. That’s all it takes. Key words and next thing the cops is banging on your door. I’ve seen it happen, Dad. I work with some hard cases, and they tell me about all these mysterious arrests all the time. They swear they told no one. That it had to be the palm, or the toaster, the car, the fridge, everything that has a goddamn microphone in it.  

“You asked me what it was like!” 

“You can tell me without being specific.” 

“Okay. Without being specific, a certain person was so afraid of the circumstance that he was in that a certain person shat himself. How’s that?” 

“I already knew that, but better.”

“And a certain person will never consider doing anything like that ever again for the rest of his life even if his son breaks all his limbs at the same time.”

“I took painkillers but it still hurts,” he said. 

“You’re getting some clumsy aren’t you? It’s that big gut you got there. I can get around better than you now sure.” 

“No doubt,” he said, sarcastically. 

There was a bing on his palm and after he looked at it he slammed his fist on the table. “I got it! Holy shit, I got it already!” 

“You got the—”  

He pointed at me, put his finger to his lips, shook his head. “We just talked about this.” 

“But—”  

He pointed at me again. 

“I’m sick of writing and cockney. Judas, why can’t we just have a private conversation like years ago?” 

“We should celebrate.” 

“Celebrate what?” I said, as he was throwing our palms in the fridge. “You didn’t win the lottery. You got them mortgage payments remember?” 

“I know I know, but we still should have a good drunk or something.” 

I stared at him. He knew I didn’t drink…well, he thought I didn’t. Not that a few glasses of wine during the v-cast was drinking. 

“I know you don’t drink,” he said, with a big sigh, as if he was saying I didn’t know how to read. 

“It’s almost daylight,” I said. “The only thing I wants to do is go to bed.” 

“I can’t go to bed now,” he said. “I’m too revved up.” 

“Revved up about paying your mortgage payments so you don’t lose your house? My God, Melvin, don’t waste it.” 

“I got all intentions of paying the goddamn mortgage payments.” 

I just shook my head and got up from the table. “You know if you looked after your money you could probably live forever.”

“I got lots of time to save money,” he said. 

I stood in the hallway, on my way to the bed. “Melvin, you’re a middle-aged man. No, you don’t have lots of time. Do you want to be like me, scrounging every cent so I can get the shot?” 

“Sure you still got the first cent you made.” 

“I’m sitting on money with this property. And me and your poor mother did save money. Neither one of us had big jobs but we did the best we could with what we had and where we started out. And we would have had a lot more saved if you didn’t run to her every time you got in trouble.” 

“What are you talking about?”

“What am I talking about? Do you really want me to start naming all the times you went to her for money? You think I don’t know about that? You think I didn’t see the thousands of dollars disappearing from our bank account?” 

“Sure what did saving money do for her? She’s gone now. I could find out I’m full of cancer tomorrow. Waste of time I says. Live while you can and fuck the future – Ow! Fuck sakes!” He got excited when he was talking and bumped his bad arm on the edge of the table. Served him right for what he was saying. 

I laughed. “You better mind that arm. And mind that money. You don’t want to lose your house. You knows I’d give you my heart if I had to, but I’m not going to be dishing out money to you, a grown man like your mother was at. Them days is over ol’ trout. I took a big risk tonight and I’ll never do that again. My nerves is still ragged from it. I thought I was going to be…” I did a shooting motion at my chest with my thumb and forefinger. “They don’t fool around.”  

“The son of the skipper threatened Frank. Then—” 

“Frank? Frank Vaders was there?” 

“Him and more besides. And it wouldn’t his first time either.” 

“Really? This must be the thing now. Wow.” 

I realized right away that I shouldn’t have said anything. I could see the wheels turning, but they were all gummed up with greed. So I decided to do something I never do. I stretched the truth a bit. 

“It’s a good racket to get into if you wants to be piss pot,” I said doing the shooting motion again with my hand. “The guy took a piss pot at Frank and just missed him.” 

“Seriously? What for?” 

“He didn’t like the way he looked —I don’t know. I was about a hundred feet away when it happened. You knows what Frank is like. He could have said anything to piss of that lunatic in the goat.” He stared at me. Boat, I mouthed without saying.  

“What happened then?”

“Well, the skipper had to wrestle her shipmate to the floor. He almost piss pot himself. It wouldn’t no regular,” I made a gun with my forefinger and thumb, “either, but one of them autos. And when she drove him below the last thing he said was, ‘I’m going to get one of you goddamn nucks before this is all over. If it’s the last thing I do! You mark my words! One of you nucks is going to be…” and then I made cutting motion across my neck for dead.  

“He made sure he got his point across,” Melvin said. That was probably the first time he heard me take the good Lord’s name in vain in his life. I knows good people who curses all day long so I figured God would let that one slide. I was trying to save my son from ruin. I’m no Abraham. Besides, I wasn’t really saying it myself. I was quoting. 

“And what was that word you just used?” he said. 

“I said…I said goddamn. Now I knows I don’t quote curse words every day but—“ 

“No, I mean what the fuck is a nuck?” 

“Oh…Canadian. That’s what the magas calls Canadians I suppose.” 

Melvin laughed. “That is the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. Where did they get it from? What do it mean?” 

“You never heard of Canadians being called Canucks before?” 

“Like the hockey team?” 

“Where do you think they got it? The hockey team.” 

“I don’t know. I never thought about it.” 

“Well now you knows,” I said, and went to bed. I could still hear him repeating the word and chuckling as I hauled the covers up over me. It was full-on daylight by then, but I was so tired the next morning I couldn’t remember my head hitting the pillow.