 
Core Values

Louis Shalako

This Smashwords edition copyright 2014 Louis Shalako and Long Cool One Books

Design: J. Thornton

ISBN 978-0-9866871-1-2

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The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person living or deceased; or to any places or events, is purely coincidental. Names, places, settings, characters and incidents are the product of the author's imagination.

Chapter One

No fear equals no experience

It started off just like any other day. Like the day hell froze over.

Brubaker had a bad attitude. But lately, when hadn't he woken up in the morning with a bad feeling, a bad taste in his mouth? He was having a real hard time hanging onto his core values.

Like last Tuesday, when he found a neck bone from someone's holiday turkey in the mailbox.

Or two weeks ago, when he found some dried-up old slices of toast stuck in between the screen and the grating on the aluminum storm doors; and hot dog buns and hamburger buns on every window ledge.

Or a month ago; when Mr. LaSally and a friend came home drunk, in the middle of he night. Walter's buddy revved the piss out of his green Jeep, and cranked up the tunes. Then Bru, lying in bed barely twenty feet away, heard them laughing in there. Then they got out of the jeep and started banging on his bedroom window, uttering threats and curses. It was clearly no accident, or unintentional.

By the time he got some pants on and grabbed a flashlight, they were gone. They most likely went in LaSally's house. How could he prove it? He couldn't, 'positively identify them.' He knew what the dispatcher would say. Yet he knew LaSally's voice when he heard it. The Jeep was still warm; the engine ticking as it cooled.

Chuck owned the house. On disability, there was no money for a phone.

How about that first summer? Every time somebody came or went, tires screamed, doors were slammed. Comments were made over the back fence; or just at the side window of his house. A side of his home that he learned to avoid, and to keep the windows closed. There was one problem. His bedroom was over there. That summer he dragged his mattress out into the far end of the living room and slept there. He had been sleeping there for over three years. The house had two bedrooms, both on the north side of the house. It was a half of his four-room house he couldn't even use. He got the distinct impression that people were banging their fists on the side of the house when they left after a big piss-up.

Especially that really big party, the first summer; the night they were all out there.

Screaming shit like 'cocksucker,' at the tops of their lungs. He didn't know if it was directed at him, but who else could it be directed at? At four o'clock in the morning?

Did they think he was gay?

Bru thought long and hard about buying that house.

As a single man, living alone on disability; owning a home in a distinctly working-class neighbourhood, he could foresee certain potential problems. But he was really more focused on the practical; the affordability aspects of the decision. It never occurred to him that people could be that ignorant. It was hard to believe this had been going on for more than three and a half years.

Analyzing it objectively, he was aware of his own little insecurities, for Christ's sakes.

He walked over to the store. Thank God; the side door was on the opposite side of the house. The dispatcher picked up and asked what the problem was?

"I have a noise complaint," he began.

"Is it really important? We're kind of busy," she informed him.

Holy crap.

Bru really didn't want to make trouble for people. How could he know that this would go on and on and on? He should have insisted. But he was unsure of himself. Chuck lacked the courage of his convictions.

"Have you tried to talk to them, sir?" she asked in a businesslike, disbelieving, and thoroughly jaded tone.

"No way! There's like twenty-five or thirty of them, drunk as skunks, out in the back yard," he blurted in disbelief. "I ain't stupid. That's why I'm calling you!"

"Sir, it is a criminal offence to misuse the 911 number."

What a kick in the nuts.

Finally he let her go, hanging up in disgust. So the problem was his to deal with.

Clearly he wasn't going to get any help from the cops.

Looking back, that was obviously his mistake. But he also really didn't want to make it about the 'gay' stuff. That was a quick road to hell in this town. After only three months in the place, he realized there was a problem, but how could he know how far it would go?

But that was the first warm weekend of springtime. It was his first year in the place.

Later, his anger level began to build.

Okay, when people partied, tossing horseshoes and stuff, and someone missed a shot; they might swear a bit, right? Brubaker was awful leery about picking up the glass slipper and seeing if it fit his foot—didn't want to be called Cinderella, right?

What was he supposed to do? Go out and crusade for gay rights?

'Not my job,' he figured. And it's not like noise was unusual for LaSally and crew.

He figured the day you try to prove to other people you're not gay, that's the day they string you up in a tree. You might as well start throwing punches before you let that happen. The day you have to account for your sexuality to the neighbours, there is a thick rope and a stout tree branch somewhere in the background. He knew this town, his knew his people. Or so he thought.

After a year or two, he was under the distinct impression that he was the subject of a witch hunt. As for the back yard, or the front yard, he never went out there except to cut the grass. He waited till they left in the mornings, and he came home after dark at night, carefully timing it to be able to come and go without the constant verbal sniping. Even the guy's mother got into it. To be fair, his wife hadn't. Brubaker went out every afternoon last fall and raked up his leaves. Only to see Mr. LaSally come home a half-hour later, get out the leaf blower, and then blow the leaves from his front lawn onto Brubaker's.

Brubaker tried and failed to borrow a video camera.

In the end, he figured, 'What good would it do?'

If he made some kind of a play and it failed, things were bound to get even worse.

Brubaker concluded, after some thought, that the man wanted to get his goat.

Walter wanted to provoke him. He wanted a confrontation, which was the exact opposite of what Bru wanted. Walter was suffering from 'little man' syndrome. With all of his friends, relatives, mothers-in-law, babysitters, employees, and friendly neighbours on all sides, Walter would always have the numbers where it counted, in court. Walter wasn't too worried about the courts, obviously. Yet there was never any doubt in Bru's mind; that he could whup any three or four of the little fuckers, drunk or sober, pretty much any day of the week.

Bru was better than that. He wasn't going to fist-fight ten drunken neighbours under any circumstances! Even though he could probably handle them, big as he was and stone-cold sober as he would most likely be.

Bru lived alone. He had few friends. A naturally solitary person, he neither needed, nor cared about the validation of a neighbour. Bru never had any intention, when he moved in, of becoming a couch fixture in some neighbour's home.

He simply didn't need that. Not after living in ten different cities in the last twenty or so years. Bru didn't live in a situation comedy world.

LaSally had lived there for decades. Walter bought his parent's home when they moved out to the suburbs, or something. Brubaker didn't have all the details. LaSally knew everyone. His kids played with their kids. Brubaker was a stranger in town, in their eyes. LaSally had a big chestnut tree on his section of city-owned boulevard, just as Brubaker had a maple tree on his. Was it really about leaves? Brubaker picked up the odd chestnut from his own lawn, but he didn't have the heart to toss it onto Walter's lawn. He just didn't have it in him.

That was some kind of character flaw. The flesh was strong in Brubaker, but his spirit was weak. At some point he knew they were harassing him. And Walter was the obvious ringleader.

What was the man's problem? Except that he was a drunk, not the best behaved of people. He had a wife and three kids, and a business; while Bru got $930.00 a month from the disability pension.

'The fog of war is legendary—and it's also true.'

When he sat and thought it all out, which he did quite often, he always came up with the same question.

"Why would a man risk everything, including a nice home and family, for absolutely no gain?"

Was some perceived gayness the problem? Was it about leaves?

What the hell was it all about?

"What a way to fuckin' live," he grumped.

***

Still, he seemed to have gotten away this morning. Every stinking morning, that guy came out in the driveway, and fired up the work truck about five-thirty a.m.

Then he went back in the house for half an hour or forty-five minutes, presumably to enjoy a long, hot shower; or bacon and eggs, or something. Bru just figured, 'more harassment.' He figured that out after roofing the garage, one square metre at a time. LaSally came to the rear of his house, the kitchen sliding door, and loudly spoke to his wife, making sure Brubaker could hear it. It was pretty revealing of his mind-set. The wife must have been right there on the other side of the board fence, by the pool.

"If Chuck falls, honey; don't call an ambulance. I want to get the video camera. You know how I like to watch him suffer..."

Brubaker was suffering a serious sleep deficit, one that had gone on for about...fuck, it had to be three or four years. He got so tired sometimes; his mind was going like gangbusters. It was jumping all over the place. He had a real Mexican jumping bean for a brain, lately.

Winter, spring, summer and fall, Bru figured no vehicle needs more than a thirty-second warm-up. In winter, five minutes should be more than enough to get some heat out of a V-8. Going without a hot water tank for eight months, LaSally couldn't possibly have known about that, right? The fact that Brubaker hadn't tasted bacon and eggs in ten years, LaSally could never guess that, eh? Turning down the thermostat to twelve degrees Celsius in winter, Walter couldn't know about that, could he?

Using the bent coat hangar attached to the broken latch-lever, quite an ingenious device; Brubaker opened up his 1986 greyish-sky-bluish Ford Tempo, rolling both windows down because the heater wasn't working. In the humid, March morning air, the windows would soon fog up.

His step-father gave him the car in some forlorn and misguided attempt to be helpful.

Brubaker could only imagine what the neighbours thought of that.

'How can you afford a car when you're on disability?'

Walter's old man died and left him a pile of money. It was his birthright or something.

But that's where the big, charcoal-grey Escalade actually came from. Ugliest truck ever made, a symbol of excess more than anything.

In the odd nooks and crannies surrounding area homes; piles of frozen crud which had once been pure, crystal white snowflakes lay heaped up. A couple of fresh flurries tumbled and swooped on their lethargic descent to earth. Grey, leaden skies hung low overhead, and the bare tops of trees beat and swayed in the thirty-five kilometre gusting breezes. His green work parka, the one with another man's name stenciled on the back of the collar, the one from the Salvation Army, bulged alarmingly. But he managed to get the seatbelt done up, and his coat zippered tight up around the neck.

He fired up the boiler and slid her into gear.

Having scrupulously saved up about seventy-five bucks in cash over the last month, quite an achievement; he wanted new socks, underwear, and maybe some jeans. The cheapest place he could think of was the big new Whale-Mart out in the east end of town.

Acquaintances were raving about the size of the place, and the prices. Now would be a good time to check it out. Besides which, they apparently opened up at eight o'clock in the morning.

A typical male shopper, Bru figured he could be in and out in twelve minutes.

Brubaker was a safe driver. He had never been in an accident in his life. That is to say that he never went off the road and caused any serious damage. Mostly youthful indiscretions, where a couple of passengers could get out and push him back onto the road. Or that time when he was alone, drunk in the MGB, when he ended up safe and sound in the bottom of a big ditch.

He was attempting a U-turn on a narrow road with no verge. He got one wheel over the lip. The steep, grass-lined ditch sucked him right down, when he hit the gas.

Backing up until he had a good hundred-metre-long run, he accelerated up the steep bank. Shooting out of the ditch, he flew up and out onto the road, and escaped. Although he may have left a trail of empty beer cans in his getaway. Better safe than sorry. He had a feeling that he might have drawn some attention to himself. The barking dogs from nearby farmhouses were some indication.

That was a long time ago.

He felt warm enough in the balaclava. He soon took off the cheap cotton work gloves. After a long winter he was acclimatized. The trouble with little four-cylinder cars these days was that they had an automatic choke. The carb iced up easily under certain conditions. When that happened, you had to put it in neutral quickly, hopefully without accidentally shoving it into reverse. This was almost invariably fatal to the vehicle, at least in a front-wheel drive car. Perhaps it would clear up without stalling. He knew enough not to hit the washer fluid and wipers at this temperature.

He chugged out Vimy Ridge Road; meaning to stop at Blim's. While it didn't make a lot of sense to purchase his coffee, then go into a store for an indefinite time period; he wanted that coffee.

Feeling flush with cash, he wanted that coffee real bad.

Blim's was on the left, a couple of kilometres east. He cruised at about the speed limit in the right-hand lane. Traffic was light, but he drove courteously. He made it easy for other drivers to pass. He knew he was going slow, for Christ's sakes. As he approached the stoplight immediately before the Blim Blorton's shop; he put on the left turn signal and began to change lanes. At that precise moment, the cellular phone buttoned-down in his right-hand vest pocket began to buzz and whir; and exactly then, the traffic light changed to yellow. His knuckle accidentally knocked the turn signal and it shut off.

"Shit," he cursed, trying to get at the phone, watch the mirrors, change lanes, and cussing profusely, because he couldn't possibly get at the phone in time.

The whole thing happened due to a moment of brain fade.

He was pissed off because it was probably his mom.

She was probably calling him up to pass the time of day, or to remind him of some little thing he promised to do. Virtually no one else ever called him. She gave him the old thing, practically an antique; 'for emergencies,' in the hope that her son wouldn't feel so vulnerable to more harassment.

Stressed out, with a mind full of shit; Chuck's hesitation was momentary.

Impulsively, with a brief, strident chirp from the tires, he tapped the brakes and went to the right, pulling into the entrance of a major strip mall. The big-box Zedco anchored two dozen smaller retailers, everyone from fish and chips, shoes, a pediatrician, and mini-bingo. He was boxed in by curbing and planters.

As he finally yanked the phone out of the innermost recesses of his attire; on about the seventh ring; he came to the front of Zedco, and pulled right again. He pulled to a stop in the centre of the empty lot. It was still about an hour before Zedco's opening time. He snapped open the cover of the big, black, leather-encased Motorola Microtac-650 and hit the button.

Too late. Predictably, there was no one on the line.

"God damn it!"

He tossed the phone in disgust onto the passenger seat.

Before he got going again, he popped open the glove box to search for enough change.

He was pretty sure, but he hated digging in there with one eye on the line-up. It was hard on the back for one thing, and frustrating, for another. Belted in, big coat, digging for those thin little dimes in the glove-box was sheer hell. Like trying to pick one's nose while wearing boxing gloves.

That's when he heard incoherent shouting from off to his left, and when he looked, a couple of men were putting stuff in a dumpster. Now one of them was running, running directly towards him from fifty or sixty metres away on the other side of the parking lot.

"What the?" he mumbled; recognizing Walter LaSally, his neighbour.

In a bit of a shock, he saw another neighbour, Tim 'Tiny' Adamanaki, standing by the Escalade. He was jumping up and down and screaming profanity.

"Fucking God damn it all to hell..."

He just had time to say it before LaSally came pelting up to the open window.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" shrieked Walter, half out of breath; practically bouncing off the door.

His eyes widened and his jaw dropped in shock.

Already angry, Walter now became livid. Bru turned his head to see what he was looking at. All he could see was the open glove box, nothing unusual.

"Are you taking my picture, you fucking freak?" bellowed Walter, hopping up and down from one foot to another, working up into a real tirade.

When LaSally barked at him, Bru flinched, an instinctive reaction.

"At least I work, at least I'm not on the system," Walter hollered, with white foamy specks of spittle flying off in every direction.

"I've never been on the system," he kept shrieking.

The man was going ballistic.

(Reviewing it later, that was about the most revealing thing the man ever said.)

"Ah! The camera," acknowledged Bru, wondering what the fuss was all about.

While they despised each other, no doubt; he had never seen the man like this.

"What are you going to do? Take my picture and rat me off to unemployment?" asked Walter in a cold, glittering rage. "Were you going to take my picture illegally dumping? Drop a dime on me, you fucking freako?"

He was clearly out of control. Fists clenching and unclenching at his sides, the man was practically hopping up and down.

"But you're self-employed, Mr. LaSally! Surely you know this?" Bru mused aloud for the other's benefit, hoping to defuse the situation, which was absolutely beyond his comprehension.

A quick sense of humour had sometimes gotten him out of a tough spot, and he had never seen Walter violent. But he was definitely border-line, at this moment.

"Anyway, you're a landscaper, aren't you? It's the middle of winter," added Chuck with some heat.

He just couldn't help himself

It wasn't too wise to drive off while the guy was standing so close, but he put it into drive, keeping his foot on the brake. He looked Walter in the eye, in as friendly a fashion as he possibly could under such circumstances.

"Stress is a silent killer. You need to relax, buddy."

"Are you threatening me?" howled Walter.

Bru just shook his head in disgust, reaching for the window crank.

You can't live beside a guy for four years and not have any idea of what he does for a living. It was his excuse for the truck, after all. Bru didn't get the chance to explain about the cell phone. Walter was sprinting back to his buddy Tim.

By the time Brubaker got to the exit of the plaza, and found himself at a red light, the big grey truck was right on him.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he gurgled, pissed-off and at a loss for what to do.

The light turned green. They followed him. He turned left, having no idea of where he was going, or what to do. Walter pulled into the right-hand lane, coming up beside him, yelling and shouting curses, profanity, and threats. Tim was sitting up on the ledge of the passenger door, looking over the top of the cab and yelling too.

What should he do? Go to the cop shop? They would just break off a couple of blocks beforehand, wouldn't they? Bru's adrenalin was rushing, and he couldn't think straight as the pulse of his heart beat up and around his ears. If he simply stopped and pulled over, there'd be a fight, right? And of course the cops would be on LaSally's side.

He knew that. Walter drank at the Nautical Club, where wannabes drank with the cops and all their hangers-on.

They kept at him, dropping back, and making mock ramming attacks at the back end of the Tempo. When he changed lanes they zoomed up the other side.

He rolled up the windows, which made it difficult to hear everything they said.

It was pretty bad, pretty threatening anyhow. Oddly enough, Bru was not in a panic.

Not now. Sooner or later, they had to come across a cop in a patrol cruiser, right?

Wrong.

He just kept turning left when they were in the right-hand lane; or right when they were in the left-hand lane. They always caught up.

Chuck wasn't willing to go eighty miles per hour, or really wring it out. He wasn't prepared to jump a parking block and bolt across a public park; or anything like that.

Walter was driving real crazy, and about now Bru was feeling a little stubborn. It was time for the old man's morning walk. No point in going there. Mushhead's? He quickly ruled it out.

Mush would tell him, 'Just get over it.'

He'd just about had enough of Walter LaSally and crew.

Several minutes later; with no place else to go, Brubaker pulled back into his own driveway, with the big truck screeching to a halt in the driveway right next door. Kids, five or six of 'em; all standing there with a glazed look on their faces as their dads came storming out of the truck. Walter was standing on the edge of the driveway, picking up stones but not throwing them. Not yet.

At least two of the kids belonged to him. Didn't he see what a spectacle he was making? But he was still ranting and raving, practically foaming at the mouth.

Brubaker snagged up the camera by its strap as it half hung out of the still-open glove box, and jammed the phone in his pocket. He made for the house with his ears stinging at insults from Walter, his neighbour on one side, and Tim, who was his neighbour on the other. He dumped the camera on the kitchen table, half expecting to hear a pounding at the door. But after a short time the shouting subsided. He slumped at the table, then got up and filled the kettle. Putting it on the stove, he sat back down again, mind a blur as he tried to think things out.

"Oh, man. Holy crap," he groaned, more than once.

Now what? To try to leave again was taking a chance. What was he supposed to do now?

The vehicle next door hadn't started up. They were still there. What was going on over there? He strained to hear over the noise of the burbling kettle, as it began to get going.

No new socks today. No new gotchies today. There were times when he absolutely cursed his decision to buy old Aunt Mildred's house, and this was definitely one of them. How had things come to such a pass? He jumped up again, and went to the front door. He cautiously cracked it, and had a quick look. The Escalade was still there, but there was no one about.

Things were awful quiet for a change. He was just sipping at the hot brim of his tea when a thud came at the front door. An unfamiliar voice called in through the front hallway.

"You know why we're here! We're coming in, and we're not taking no for an answer!"

Suddenly three cops were standing in his kitchen. A sickening feeling. Three cops, and worse; they were from Sergeant Oberon's shift.

"Would you please stand up, sir," he was politely instructed.

As yet, he hadn't said a darned thing.

"That miserable, dirty, abusive son of a bitch! I will never fucking rest," he told them.

Then he clamped down real hard and shut up.

"Would you please turn around, sir; and put your hands behind your back," the cop told him as the others stood off, well off to one side and the other, hands on their holsters.

He felt the handcuffs being put on and they began to search his pockets. Brubaker sighed deeply as the biggest one began to perfunctorily read him his rights.

Bru's in control, he thought to himself.

"You are under arrest. You have the right to a legal representative," etc, etc, etc.

Just like a bad made-for-TV movie. The cop searching him held up a little package, a rolled-up and squished-down baggie with about a gram and a half of pot in it, and some Jiggy-Jag rolling papers. A roach clip, all rolled up in a red bandanna.

"What's all this then?" he asked.

Brubaker grimaced ruefully and shook his head, despite being a lifelong Monty Python fan.

"Well, we're not too interested in that," said the cop.

"Give it back, then," suggested Bru.

The cop just shook his head,

"Oh, we couldn't do that," he said.

(To be fair, his bandana, roach clip and papers were later returned. – ed.)

Brubaker never saw his home again. No, Mr. Brubaker was taken downtown in a police cruiser, which halted at the big overhead door on the back of the building.

Reaching for the microphone, the officer spoke briefly.

"Open sally port, please," and the big door began to rise.

Taking him inside; they made him give up his wallet and keys, work boots and belt, and made him sign on a dotted line.

"You guys are the ones who should be signing for it!" he protested.

The big cop behind the desk just gave him a look.

He asked to make a phone call.

"You'll have a chance when they take you over to the courthouse," the cop said.

Then they placed him in a holding cell, which had a flat slab of stainless steel for a bed, and a one-piece stainless steel combination sink and toilet. He saw a depression meant to hold a roll of toilet paper, the short spigot coming out of the top of the tank, and buttons to make water flow. One button to make it flush; and one for the cold-water-only sink. There was no one else in the row of six cells. After the cops left him, silence reigned supreme.

Without his watch, he had no idea of what time it was, or how much time passed.

There was a sign on the wall across from his cell.

'Monitored by video surveillance.'

After a few hours in there, they finally came to get him. They took him upstairs for booking; fingerprints and a photograph, the good old, 'mug shot,' so beloved of tabloid journalists.

They weighed him and measured him just like a trophy fish. From their perspective, he probably was. The cop was having a hard time with the height measurement. He kept going up on his tippy-toes, and was even bouncing up and down a little to try to get a peek at the big ruler, a kind of decal stuck to the wall behind him.

"How tall are you, buddy?" he finally asked in exasperation.

Brubaker was well over six foot five, but apparently the cops weren't too good at the metric system.

It said, '197 centimetres,' on his driver's license.

"Six foot eight," said Bru.

The cop wrote it down in gratitude, and then checked the weight of the captive.

"One-seventy-eight," noted the cop.

That seemed awful light, but Bru figured he was losing weight lately.

"Or a hundred and thirty-two-point-five kilograms," said Brubaker helpfully.

The cop carefully wrote it down in the appropriate box. Brubaker hadn't shaved in a week or ten days. A pack of disposable razors was simply outside of his budget this time around. He went down in cop history as a man with a beard.

"Do you have any visible scars or tattoos?" asked the fuzz.

Bru awkwardly pointed at his left cheek, where if you squinted you might see the pale remnant from when he fell face-first off the slide in the park at about age seven. He tried to slide down while standing up. When his running shoes stopped suddenly, he kept going in a classic, 'face-plant.' The cop carefully wrote down, 'scar on left cheek,' while Bru grinned over his head like an idiot.

No one else seemed to be catching on.

Inspiration struck him.

"Oh, yeah! I have a tattoo of a unicorn on my left buttock," he lied. "Want to see it?"

The cop shook his head, but then looked up.

"Really?" the fuzz seemed impressed. "That's cool, man. So you're like totally comfortable with your sexuality, then, eh?"

Ah! LaSally's been talking up a storm, he decided.

"Yep," smiled Bru.

"Okay, chin up. Cheese!" and a flash popped off in his eyes.

Then they led him down to the holding cell again. Brubaker had been up since dawn, with no breakfast except a cup of tea about six-thirty. His stomach rumbled and quaked. Yet all sense of time was quickly lost. Life stretched out forever, in a grim and dismal prospect.

Brubaker's thoughts at this time were of the despairing nature, but how long could this go on? What crime had he committed? None that he could see. He was discovering that a clear conscience wasn't much comfort in this situation. Dread, just plain dread, came creeping up on him.

What the fuck was going on?

Just as suddenly the cops got him out again. They put him in the back seat of a cruiser, with a young man of about sixteen years old on the other side of the back seat, who was also in cuffs.

They let him wear his boots, but they had all his personal effects in a zip-lock baggie.

Driving across town, the cops took him and the other fellow three flights up the back stairs of the courthouse, and placed them in a holding cell with a number of other males; other unfortunate; or criminal characters. The kid latched onto him like a straw to a drowning man.

"My mom called them cops on me," he confided to Brubaker. "I'm wild and out of control. I hate her."

He stared at Brubaker as if waiting for some judgment, perhaps to see if Bru was impressed. But Charles had problems of his own to worry about.

"Look, kid. In jail, you listen to the guards. Do what they tell you. Okay? Don't lip off to the guards. Mind your own business. Don't whistle in a jail, okay? Jail is not a happy place. It's not a place for whistling, okay?"

He waited for the kid to ask what he was in for.

"What are you in for?" the kid asked.

"I don't really know," he admitted. "My neighbour thinks I took his picture, in the Zedco parking lot! What kind of a charge that might be, beats me. I have no idea."

After a few seconds: "A bullshit charge, I guess."

"I hate the Lennox cops," the kid noted.

"Yeah. We all do," Bru replied.

And for all the right reasons, he was thinking.

"My mom called the cops on me because I come home drunk and stoned, and tell her to fuck off, and when she throws me out I don't come home for three days, sometimes a week," said the kid.

He sat beside Brubaker on the bench, a small, slight, scared kid, his face agape in what looked like a cross between a grin and a wince. He didn't look too drunk or stoned now, thought Bru.

A half a dozen other prisoners sat there as well.

A man with a shaved head, startling blue eyes and a poxy face; wearing orange coveralls and blue elastic-sided slippers; paced up and down the length of the cell, glaring at Bru and the kid. A couple of guys in orange huddled in the cubicle for what Bru assumed was the toilet. They were trying to light something. They appeared to have a lighter that was out of gas, a rolled-up twist of toilet paper and lint? Was that lint in the end?

Crack-heads, he surmised. A home made pipe. A toilet paper roll; and some tin foil.

Interesting.

"So that's how they do it," he said and a guy across from him grinned.

Three guys sat on the bench opposite, basically just looking bored and miserable, all in street clothes.

As desultory conversation occurred all around, Brubaker was thinking. What can one do under such circumstances? At this point, he still wondered if he would be charged or something. Since he had no criminal record, he figured he should be let out of here in a couple of hours or so.

But he knew nothing of the system.

In fact, after a brief ceremony, he was taken via an underground tunnel to the brooding maximum-security jail across the parking lot. He sat there for three days in the hospital ward, a row of four cells in a room of their own.

The guy on his left laughed and puked for the first two days. The guy on his right was transferred in from another jail, to face trial for murder. You could say they were all on suicide watch.

The three days he was in there, he felt a rising sense of dread. There is no other way to describe it. Just dread. At some point he asked a guard for a book. The one book they had in the building turned out to be about the hunt for some psycho killer. Some place really cold, like Minneapolis-St. Paul. While he knew it was a work of fiction, the thing was pretty disturbing. Present circumstances might have had something to do with it.

The person in the book was abducting female street people, young women. Then, (in no particular order, ) he raped them, killed them, tore the heads off the bodies by sheer brute force, and then poured gasoline on them and set them on fire. He had a thing for some female reporter, and the cops could only try to profile the guy and anticipate where he would strike next.

The last twenty or thirty pages of the book were missing. It was only months later; at the height of his anxiety attacks, the peak of his paranoia, when he began to wonder if that was really the only book they had in there. And why had they given it to him? Were they playing some kind of a game? He had nothing to do but think. The bastards were telling him he was mentally ill. What other messages were they trying to send.

The very walls around him were a message.

It was only later, when he tried to draw conclusions, that he realized what a big impression the whole incident made on him.

***

They took him and some others back to the courthouse, chained together in pairs.

Through the tunnel, and run 'em up the stairs.

After an hour or two, he was led out into the prisoner's dock. Never having been in trouble before, Bru looked around in simple curiousity. The novelty of his situation made it hard to take seriously. It was hard to believe they were talking about him! Surely he would be let out soon now, as he listened to the so-called charge; what passed for information in this courtroom.

"...Sergeant Oberon called his doctor and according to his doctor, Mr. Brubaker suffers from paranoia, and Doctor Treadmill has been treating him for this for some time...police say Mr. Brubaker is dangerous, out of control, and an unexploded bomb waiting to happen. He is paranoid and delusional. Mr. LaSally has made a 39-minute video statement. He told the Crown that he fears Mr. Brubaker and that he also fears for the safety of his family...asking no bail be granted to Mr. Brubaker...Mr. LaSally says Mr. Brubaker is basically a nice guy, and he really likes him, and cannot understand why Mr. Brubaker would feel that Walter is harassing him..."

"Counsel?" asked the Judge, some guy Bru had spoken to.

They called the lickspittle, toadying, curtsying fool, 'duty counsel.'

In their brief consultation, he tried and tried to explain to the guy, that LaSally had been harassing him for years.

Counsel stood up.

"Mr. Brubaker indicates that he cannot return to his home after this incident, and will in fact be forced to sell his house due to long-term harassment by Mr. LaSally. Mr. Brubaker has no criminal record; and no history of violence. He's done everything in his power to avoid Mr. LaSally and denies taking his picture."

"Dr. Treadmill never told me that..."

Chuck had a hand raised just like in school.

Bru wanted to ask the judge about that mental illness thing, but didn't get too far. She preferred speaking to duty counsel.

"Remind me never to speak to duty counsel again," Chuck noted. "For the record."

"Who made this diagnosis?" the judge asked, eyebrows raised.

"My frickin' neighbour," blurted out Brubaker, and they all laughed.

(Except him.)

She cut him off.

"A kind of he-said, she-said thing, eh?"

Counsel nodded.

Apparently they were charging Bru with criminal harassment.

Interesting...interesting. Charles was in some kind of shock.

The duty counsel nodded objectively, obviously not wanting to get too involved, or arouse the judge's ire too much.

But then; he had a lot of cases that day.

Bru only had one.

Bru remembered the lady from the paper. She was the one with five years in family law and then they appointed her a judge. Firstly, she was a Progressive Conservative, having been appointed during the Mike Smegma years. Secondly, (and this was just Brubaker's personal opinion,) she was a bitch.

The terms of the bail agreement stated that he would reside until trial date at his father's. It was the only place he could reasonably think of, and he agreed not to go within three hundred metres of Mr. LaSally's address, (his own house was right next door.) He agreed to be at 'home' after 10 p.m. except for purposes of work, or medical visits. Then they let him out through a little gate. He sat with his mom and dad while waiting for the papers to be drawn up.

It was only later, when Bru wondered what would have happened if he refused to sign? Would they have held him for nine months? What if he was acquitted then? He could have sued them for a million bucks, right? Yet he also knew, deep down inside; he couldn't have survived nine months in jail.

The next case was ready to go. Voices lifted up and filled the courtroom.

Just like in a church, he realized.

"You look good in orange," his mom whispered.

Mothers!

Finally the clerk signaled; and he hoped to get his pants back very quickly. After three months of not smoking, Bru planned on heading straight to the store and buying a pack.

***

It didn't take very long for Brubaker to figure out that he couldn't pay the mortgage on the house and pay rent somewhere else on his tiny disability pension. He couldn't even go near his own home for up to a year, or for however long it took to resolve the court case.

That fuckin' LaSally was doing a real number on him. He figured that much out when he went to sell his house and the ODSP cut off his pension. The ODSP cut off his pension five times over the next year and a half. But then Chuck was also trying to build up a business at the same time. He was just starting to show some results—something the Ontario Disability Support Program apparently just couldn't abide.

Chapter Two

Two years later; a ride along the boardwalk...

A Bible quotation popped into his head.

"He goeth among the horses, and the shouting, and the armed men, and the trumpets, but he feareth not, and he rejoiceth," Old Testament Stuff.

For he is the war horse of Israel.

But, with the back stiff and sore, a long bike ride would have to wait for another day. He had his camera in the pouch, and a mission to fulfill. Picking his moment, poised on the bike like a big cat, he watched the traffic for a break. He put the nose over the rim of the old ferry dock hill on Perth Street, and the speed built up. Banking to the right, he felt the tracks under the wheels. As usual the back end came out about two inches, but he had just enough in reserve...he was through. You wanted to hit that one perfectly, and watch the gravel on the off-camber bits. There were several patches in front of the law office.

The warm spring sunshine beat down on his head and neck as he pedaled. His heart beat strongly and confidently in his chest. It wasn't uncomfortable, it was reassuring in its very immediacy. Carefully reaching for the bottle, he swigged down a couple of mouthfuls of water.

As he rode along the boardwalk, the man on the bike nodded pleasantly to those he passed. First there was an elderly couple on bikes, complete with matching jogging suits, shoes and helmets. He nodded at others as he went. For a young mother with a stroller and a toddler, he courteously slowed down and gave a wide berth. Bru was a happy person, comfortable with himself. He liked to make a lot of eye contact with strangers, especially in the more non-threatening environments. Like 'the boardwalk,' for example; although it was in fact made of concrete and steel. After a while, if you made it part of the routine, everyone knew you, and you knew everyone.

Next came a pair of joggers, off-duty cops by the look of them, one a tall, slender male about thirty years old, and the other a female perhaps a couple of years older. Then it was the lineup of old men from the rest home. The men were bundled up in sweaters and all arranged in a row along the railing. A young woman pushed the last wheelchair into the line. Another struggled with a rod and reel. She smiled at Bru.

The male cop turned to watch as he went past, but Chuck was uncaring and oblivious.

"Hold on, Hank, this worm's a rebellious devil," the words spoken in a patient tone as he went by.

That was Wendy, a good sport, and probably the saviour of this little crew.

Ten guys, where's old man Bogaert?

The male cop began muttering something to the female cop as they jogged south towards the other end of the park.

Bru tended to cruise along and rest. When an interesting set of turns beckoned up

ahead, he would stand on the pedals, lean way out forward, and really get going.

He could hear music in his head, from Bush's, 'Machine Head.'

"Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out...got a machine head...yeah..."

The knobby tires of the mountain bike howled through the turns. Just like the pro motorcycle road-racers on TV, he liked to put out a knee, and really push forward on the bike as he leaned in. With a dab of brake, he was through the esses and headed for the chicane at the end of a long straight. Sitting up, he was breathing deeply from the top of his belly, feeling warm wind push back on his chest. When sea gulls scattered in flight ahead of him, Bru stomped on the pedals and accelerated. He was oblivious to the row of vehicles, and all the passengers munching French fries from the chip truck, watching the ships pass.

Bru just figured he was part of the show.

"Got a machine head...no doubt about it."

The music beat in time with his heart.

The fountain was dry. The city didn't turn it on until the first of June, and it would be just as promptly shut off again on the first of September. It was a cost-cutting gesture that did little to ease a climbing mill rate these past few years. Occasionally he lingered, getting off the bike to stretch his legs. With the flash turned off, the digital camera from his belt pouch was completely unobtrusive. No one gave the tall man in the green military shorts, blue T-shirt and silver-grey bike helmet a second glance.

***

The two off-duty officers reached the end of the paved walkway, where the antique wrought-iron light standards and benches petered out. Then the railway wastelands began. As they turned around, the male cop explained his previous remark.

"He thinks he's Dirk Pitt, the popular action hero created by Clive Cussler," he said a little louder and more distinctly, now that they were out of earshot of casual listeners.

"Dirk Pitt?" giggled the female cop, who was a big fan of Matthew McConaughey, the star of 'Sahara.'

"He's like an underwater James Bond," said the male."So, on my last days off, it was my turn with the kids. I took them and Mazy, that's the dog, a little Jack Russell. She's really cute. Anyway, we went down to the Point Lands."

The story went in fits and starts as he huffed and puffed alongside.

"The dog went into the bushes and the kids went in after her," he said. "So I was watching this guy. That guy. He was standing on a rock with something in his hand. It looked like a plastic peanut butter jar."

She turned her head and raised an eyebrow, and he went on, encouraged.

"He put this shiny thing in there, presumably a camera. Then he screwed the blue plastic lid on. That's why I figure, Liberte Peanut Butter, right? And then he whipped out a roll of electrical tape, spun it around the lid a couple times, tore it off, flung it aside, and then he bloody well jumped in the river!" recounted Constable Jason Williams, a tall, lightly-built officer with seven years on the force.

Constable Elizabeth Grunion had to giggle at that one, but it wasn't over yet.

"I swear to God, the guy was down there a good three or four minutes," and she had to laugh again.

"They call that guy, 'the Mutant,' you know. Something that happened in high school. I don't know what."

That was the worst thing sometimes. It left it entirely up to the imagination.

***

Upon returning from his ride, Bru noted the approximate mileage on his calendar.

Brubaker sat down at his dog-eared and nicotine-stained old Pentium II computer. He cleared his thoughts.

He thought again, as he had many times, of the person he was writing to. Fred Barnes was the editor of the local daily. Barnes was maybe fifty-four years old, tall, about two hundred and eighty pounds, balding, paunchy with a grizzled, greyish beard, all pepper-and-salt and trimmed quite short. His twinkling blue eyes and granny glasses, a holdover from the 60's, belied a keen and devious mind—and a very hard-nosed son of a bitch he could be. Journalists never answered questions, in Chuck's experience, and what did that say?

'These are the facts. Take it or leave it.'

But don't question the messenger, as to Caesar's state of mind at the time of this writing.

Brubaker knew that an editor in a market of this size would be conservative. They would be scared shitless over the possibility of offending readers; or losing sales in the advertising department. Newspapers seemed to operate on a pretty slim margin of profit. In a town like this, the local paper probably lost money. Only the fact that it was part of a huge chain made it possible at all.

To a Canadian journalist, it would be a cardinal sin to get involved with the source, to lose one's objectivity. The story came up and bit Chuck on the ass. To have objectivity meant giving up the ability or the inclination to act.

He had no choice.

He was on disability, he was going to write about it. Someone harassed him out of his home, he wrote about it. Poverty, and pollution, he wrote about it.

Somewhere in the world there was a mealy-mouthed prick saying, 'Write about what you know.'

"Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke."

That's the way he had it figured.

The clatter of a familiar engine came as the cat, 'Butt Plug,' perked up its ears.

His dad's 18-year old Volvo was coming up the driveway beside his basement apartment window. Brubaker got up and went to help with the groceries. The next letter could sit a while. Chuck was now living in his dad's basement.

He greeted the old man in the driveway and hefted the major portion of the load.

"Senna-ma-gui," he intoned majestically.

"Kutta-tutta, mutta-ma-tutta," the old guy responded.

Bru gasped "Shula ma biwi!"

This always bemused and entranced spectators, of which there were exactly none this morning.

"Kuskapoo-gorka," concluded his father with a grin, the ritual complete.

As they stood in the long, narrow kitchen, never painted since mom left thirty- something years ago, he chaffed the old man a bit to keep up morale.

"There's a new young lady at the grocery store," his old man was telling him. "I could eat her with relish," rolling his eyes and breathing deeply. "She could make a married man wish he was single..."

"Yeah, yeah, and a single man wish he was married. I get the picture," finished the son. "That's why you can't just give me some money and a list."

"When you stop looking, you're dead," the older Brubaker said.

Anyway, it helped the old man pass the time. Not much to look forward to at his age.

The old man was too stubborn to buy a book of stamps! He had to take each and every bill, the minute it landed in the box, make up a cheque, and drive it down to the post office. While Brubaker loved the old guy, he was totally predictable after all these years. Brubaker figured routine was all that kept some people going. Maybe that was what kept zombies going. They were stuck in a rut.

Then it was time to give his dad a smoke. Again, he was saddened to note the tremor in dad's right hand. About the same as yesterday; the tremor was five inches plus a little more.

"I got better pictures today," he told his father.

Bru was pretty sure the old guy had Parkinson's or Huntington's. It didn't look like classic Alzheimer's.

He was still all right in the head.

It's just that Pop was stubborn about going to the doctor.

Chapter Three

Meanwhile, back in the newsroom...

Mr. Fred Barnes

The Lennox Guardian-Standard

140 S. Blount St.

Lennox, Ont.

Z8C 1F3

Charles H. Brubaker

853 Knight St.

Lennox, Ont.

Z7B 9N4

Dear sir;

Scow has announced they are closing the Lennox site. The big news is lost jobs. Some goofy politician hopes a few white-collar sales jobs can be saved. The impact to the tax base is one concern.

Have you ever considered what it takes to shut down a chemical plant? The land down there is riddled with thousands of miles of buried pipes and cables.

The ground, in my own personal experience, is soaked with chemicals. I worked there one summer and spent fourteen weeks on the end of a shovel. We had to hand-dig around all the pipes and cables. They didn't want to hit them with a backhoe.

I am intimately familiar with that soil. We had to literally saw two-inch slices off with our shovels. It stuck to the end, which made it hard to dig. It oozed with chemicals.

Trying to fling it off the end of a shovel was unbelievable. It stuck like glue.

Read their closure plan very carefully.

Dioxin breaks down in the environment into fairly stable long-chain compounds.

These molecules persist in the environment. They resemble female hormones in their chemical structure and effects on living organisms.

A lake in Louisiana had a dramatic increase in the number of female alligators born. Normally, a degree or two of higher temperature determines the number of females, but the lake was at its normal temperature.

It turned out to be dioxin derivatives in the environment. Some very highly-paid flunky is conducting a study or assessment of the problem on the reserve even as we speak. The results will be inconclusive, but indicate the need for further study. This tosses all responsibility onto some other level of government. There has to be some reason for the anomalous birthrate on 'the Rez.'

Nothing happens for no reason.

Scow makes products like the ones in question. Off the record, in the eighties, Scow had a mouthwash. It was called 'Nepatol.' If kids under 16 used it, their teeth were permanently stained green. Scow was aware of the problem.

Scow resorted to 'advanced media training,' for its executives in order to cope with media inquires of this and other like matters. Don't believe everything they tell you.

O.K?

If I was Scow Chemical, and if I suspected a link between our onsite activities and the abnormal birthrate on the reserve, I would get out of town and 're-brand' the company.

The least suspicious way to do it is a 'hostile takeover,' where all the executives, the very same ones who wrote the deal, get paid off when the new guys take over. Then they get to become lobbyists in Washington and Ottawa for the petrochemical industry.

Not everyone has a memory like an elevator and a mind like a lead trap-door.

Thank Gawd we have Mayor Hope Pedlar to stand up for the little people!

On Friday, I observed about two hundred or so blobs of oil, at the foot of Vimy Ridge Road. They ranged in size from about a dime to a dinner plate. Most were bluish-greenish and one was shiny, golden, and all shimmery, just like hydrocarbons.

The week before, I observed a slick of dark, oily matter emanating from what is clearly an outfall. Same location. This went out twenty-five metres, then went left, (south,) and petered out. It was ten metres wide, and three hundred metres long.

I was thinking of taking a photo, but I'm afraid of being caught by the police.

— Chuck

"When he refers to some, 'goofy,' politician, presumably he means Hope Pedlar," tittered Ryebaum. "Striving for accuracy, I guess!"

"...holy crap, how paranoid is this guy?" murmured Mackenzie Schwartz, Food and Beverage Editor of the paper. "He makes a lot of sense one minute, then he's just nutzo by the end of the piece."

Schwartzie's were feet killing her again.

Gawd help us.

"I don't know, but he raises some interesting points," quipped their sports-photographer-type-guy, a tall skinny reporter by the name of Ryebaum.

That name fits, she thought to herself.

Rick Ryebaum eyed the long sexy legs, clad in lacy black stockings and high heel stilettos, rather speculatively, but kept his mouth shut. Schwartzie had learned to live with it. When he appeared not to be looking; Schwartzie tugged at the hem of her skirt. No joy. Hell.

"Okay, here's the next one," quoth Barnes, editor and commander-in-chief of all these disparate, (or, as some said, desperate,) characters.

Dear sir;

Regarding the story about anomalous birth rates on the reserve.

The ratio of girl babies compared to boy babies is skewed in favour of the girls.

Human beings have 23 pairs of chromosomes.

If the mother has blue eyes, and contributes a chromosome for blue eyes, and the father contributes one for brown eyes, the child will have brown eyes. Yet a brown-eyes man could contribute a recessive, i.e. 'blue-eyed' gene from up the family tree.

Then a blue-eyed child would ensue. Brown eyes dominate blue eyes.

There are chromosomes which determine the gender of the baby. The mom contributes one, and the dad contributes one. Now if the mom contributes a chromosome which says, 'I want to be a little girl baby,' and the dad contributes one which says, 'I don't know what I want to be,' then that might result in a female baby, due to the absence of the so-called dominant male gene.

Is gene damage causing the problem on the reserve?

They're surrounded by plants like Buncor, Polyox Corp., what used to be called Union-Carter Tech in Schmedleyville, and of course Scow. Then there is the abandoned Unity Chemical site. What chemical causes chromosomal damage?

What about social factors, like methamphetamines, marijuana, or even the prevalence of diabetes among the natives?

One more thing. Variation in the number of chromosomes can be induced artificially, especially in plants. Multiples of the normal number of chromosomes may be produced by treatment with colchicine. Scow produces 'farm products.' Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, or at least the constituent feed-stocks that go into the making of them.

Spray a weed with sudden-growth hormone; it shoots up faster than the root can grow.

All of a sudden you've got a dead weed. That's how that stuff works.

The deer, the waterfowl, and the fish eat the plants. The Nassagewaya eat them in their turn.

Just think of the liability. Not just to Scow Chemical, but all the various levels of government; perhaps even this newspaper. Your editorials are always in favour of the petrochemical industry, right?

When the lid popped off one of them units down there, we'd vacuum it up, and take it to the company landfill. I worked at Scheist Water-Blasting on a sucker-truck. I was an industrial vacuum technician. On Friday nights, when everyone else was drunk and wouldn't answer the phone, I would get called in on high-pressure water-blasting. At nine bucks an hour, that's a hard life. Most of them guys simply couldn't get employment anywhere else. No education; criminal records, or substance abuse issues. No one else would hire them, or they burned all possible bridges long previously.

They don't ask too many questions.

Neither does Scheist.

It might go to Krystal Waters and be burned as solid toxic waste, and the residue goes up the smokestack. Right out into the environment. Solid ash goes into the company landfill. That Krystal Waters plant is way out there in the boonies. We used to go in, blast out the flues, and suck up the stuff, and then take it over to their landfill. All them guys have a landfill site.

The guidelines for product safety are different than the guidelines for disposal.

You ever wonder why that plant is twenty kilometres east of town? It's downwind.

Nothing out there but soybeans, corn and pasture, dairying operations, poultry and such. There's really nothing to worry about, right?

So much of our diet these days comes from soybeans, eh? You have a lot of grocery ads in your paper, right? You know all about that sort of thing.

Human beings are a 'bell-weather species.' We're at the top of the food chain. We prey on everything else. And we're omnivorous, like pigs. Humans and pigs resemble each other in physiological terms. That's why pigs are used extensively in medical research. The only major difference between the pig and a human being is the opposable thumb—we can strike a light and they can't.

When a spill occurs, questions are asked.

'Why did it take four hours to report the spill?'

They were waiting to see if it would sink. If it sinks, no one sees it. No one complains, and there is no problem.

'No problem,' means, 'nothing to report.'

In western society, 51% of all babies born are female. I don't know why. Ask Doctor David Suzuki. When did the rise in the female birthrate first become apparent?

It's not enough to study the humans. Animals should be included in the exact same study, in the exact same areas. Animals don't have social problems. They're a control group. An objectively-constituted control group has been left out of every major study so far. (Since the dawn of time.) When a scientist accepts funding for a study, and comes up with results that are inconclusive, there's at least one thing they didn't tell you—they never could have gotten a conclusive, objective result.

Pollutants, including heavy metals, dioxins, etc; are found in the high arctic. Where are you going to find an uncontaminated human control group? Pull some bones out of a drawer in a museum someplace and look for pollutants in the Neanderthals or Cro-Magnons? Check the bones of the first peoples, native remains from five hundred years ago?

In terms of chromosomal damage specifically, the first thing that comes to mind is radioactivity. Nuclear waste is trucked along Highway 449 and across the Clearwater Bridge. Then there's heavy metals, and the third? What if the chromosomes are not damaged? We're back to hormones and chemistry again.

As for the speculative theory that Scow might 'cut and run,' Buncor is in the midst of a huge shutdown. They're spending hundreds of millions of dollars. But maybe they're fixing a problem, eh?

If I was on the internet, I would look up 'endocrine disruptors.' You guys are on the internet, right?

My advice to you sir, is not to drink the water. Because fish fuck in there.

— Chuck

"Do you believe that guy?" asked Bill O'Keefe, the Lennox Guardian-Standard's crime and environmental reporter.

A quizzical smile tugged at the corners of baggy blue eyes and his fleshy, petulant mouth. His lumpy head and thick glasses belied a brain that must have taken a wrong turn someplace.

"I just thought you might like have a look at it," grinned managing editor Fred Barnes. "Your eyebrows were climbing as you read it!"

"Is he an Indian?" asked Ken Noble, senior story editor.

No one knew, but Ryebaum, 'doubted it.'

As he quite reasonably pointed out; "Brubaker isn't a common name on the local reserve."

"Most people understand the need for brevity, but this guy's just a loon," O'Keefe shook his head glumly. "Yet I understand the basic concern. People see Chemical Alley, they get all paranoid, and they assume the worst."

Mackenzie Schwartz sat reading, and shaking her head too.

"Well, something must explain the problem on the Reserve," muttered Barnes, already back to work.

Another day, another deadline, or rather a series of looming deadlines.

There was the Spring Living Issue, then the Bridal Issue, then the Summer in the City Issue. The Automotive Issue. He sighed. Swartz and O'Keefe noted in amusement his quick glance at a sailboat picture tacked on the wall over his cluttered workstation.

Barnes was totally unconscious of it.

"There's no doubt that some kind of study is long overdue," began O'Keefe, who could, with some little prompting, go into quite a spiel vis-à-vis pollution and corporate irresponsibility.

Not that he ever wrote about, it, conceded his boss. For that you needed evidence, and Bill was jaded after thirty-five years of observing municipal politics. His eleven poetry books, none of which sold more than a hundred copies, kept him going. O'Keefe was more than happy to take calls from friendly public-relations types and write good-news stories.

Although that one a year ago about the big chemical spill on Highway 47 won him an award. Might do well to remind Bill of that. Barnes looked at the clock. You could only push a man like Bill so hard.

"Okay, next item," he murmured.

Bill wouldn't let Brubaker do all the work. He hoped.

"He's really hooked up on the subject," Barnes noted.

Dear Fred;

You probably think the Scow theory is crazy. Fine, be that way. But what about the native guy who tested positive for 38 out of 68 chemical contaminants? That was in your paper, right? Would I test positive for 38 out of 68 chemicals? What about you, Fred?

Fish eat snails, other fish, organic matter, vegetation.

Rabbits eat vegetation, deer eat vegetation. Grouse, pheasants, and wild turkeys eat insects, nuts, seeds, berries, vegetation. But they all consume air and water.

The Nassagewaya, they're on city water? Right?

How does this chemical contamination get into the natives? The chemicals enter the bottom end of the food chain, and go on up the food chain. Natives traditionally hunt and fish. Without disrespect, they tend to hunt out of season. You could probably shoot a deer right out of the dining room window on some parts of the reserve.

I'll bet the average Nassagewaya resident eats a lot more wild game than a city guy living a kilometre away on Clark Street. They have treaty rights, other hunters get out in season. Not twelve months of the year. That's what I'm saying.

Deer and rabbits don't drink city water. They get it from a puddle, a ditch, or a stream.

Think about the fish. Literally a few yards downriver from Scow, and Buncor, and Colonial Oil, the Nassagewaya people have traditionally fished in the river. The average Nassagewaya resident has grown up eating fish from the river, far more than you or I. Historically, there were three known 'Indian' villages in Lennox County. The one at Lennox Bay, where the city now stands, one up at the mouth of the Shashawanaga River, fifteen or twenty miles to the northeast, and one downriver at the delta.

What do the three ancient sites have in common? Year-round fishing. Even when the water was frozen solid, the natives could put a line or a net under the ice. I could show you quicker than explain it. Basically, to shove a net under the ice, you need two holes, a long pole, some rope. I guess you need a pretty slow current.

Rivers like the Shashawanaga, you would maybe jig through holes chopped in the ice.

A proper study has to ask the right questions, and it has to identify the greatest at-risk groups. It has to study relevant things.

In terms of genetic factors, the Nassagaweya do represent a separate population.

Fred, even if I was totally wrong about all this, it has the makings of a pretty good novel.

— Chuck

Barnes put the letter down and went to the door of his office.

"Bill!" he called out into the newsroom.

Fred was reading a letter one minute, and the next minute, the place was deserted!

"Where the heck's Bill?" he asked.

Bill came moseying out of the back room, where their Ryebaum had his own, 'Private Idaho.' A real rat's nest back there, but he had a coffeemaker. He even cleaned it once in a while, more than could be said for the service staff.

"Ryebaum went to school with his cousin," Bill informed Barnes. "Chuck is never armed!"

"What?" gasped Barnes.

"Oh, I know! Let's see here. He never seems to get in fights. Chuck is a gentleman at heart, although you would never know it by his language. His cousin doesn't know why he's on disability. Something about a bad back; but there may be other issues. Wants to be a reporter. Studied in college, worked on the school paper. Worked as a baby photographer..."

By the thickly written steno pad, Barnes could tell there was more, lots more.

"Other issues?"

O'Keefe nodded, a wry look on his brow.

Barnes enjoyed a single, deeply drawn breath.

"I'll call Gowan over at the cop shop, see what they got on this Mr. Charles H. Brubaker," his fellow journalist told him. "But first, I'm almost late for the start of the council meeting."

See you tomorrow, in other words.

Chapter Four

A bid for Scow reported

NEW YORK – Shares of Scow Chemical Co. rose five percent Monday after a British newspaper reported a group of middle eastern investors and U.S. firms was preparing a bid for the huge chemical and plastics manufacturer.

The Sunday Express reported the group has secured financing for the St. Louis, Missouri-based company, which would result in the largest leveraged buyout ever. The Express reported the investment team, which includes the private equity firm known as Khlotzenheimer, Chavez, Filbert & Co, is preparing a bid of $52 to $58 per share. At the low end, that would be a premium of 17 percent over Scow's closing stock price of $44.47 Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange. Markets were closed Good Friday.

Scow Chemical's stock jumped $2.16, or 4.9 percent, to close at $46.63 in regular trading Monday on the NYSE after rising to a new 52-week high of $47.61 earlier in the session. The bid could come this week, with half the financial backing coming from investors in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, with the other half from U.S. and other investors. The paper did not name any other investors. No sources were cited. Spokesperson Christine Rantley said the company has a clearly-defined strategy which was discussed elsewhere by Andrew Gall-Stone, chairman and CEO. It includes remaining an integrated, diversified public company.

"We aren't discussing this with anybody," said Rantley of the offer. A $50 billion takeover of Scow Chemical would be the biggest leveraged buyout to date. A $32 billion takeover of energy giant TFU Corporation announced last February will be the biggest such deal if completed. KCF and the Arkansas-Atlantis Group are leading the group of investors bidding for TFU. Scow produces and markets chemicals, plastics and farm products as well as feed-stocks to other chemical producers. In 2009 Scow reported earnings of $4.79 billion on total sales of $43.1 billion.

***

"I have no choice but to put this in the paper today," said Barnes to Mackenzie, who looked on over his shoulder.

She shrugged.

"So what?" she asked.

Schwartzie's perfume filled his nose and probably his ears as well. Barnes could feel her warm breath on his cheek, and one time he could swear her hair fell on his neck. How close could she get? This was a hard thing to discuss with an employee. For some reason she always elevated his pulse. Schwartzie was a paradigm, an exemplar of femininity.

"Well, that Brubaker fellow will see it as a total vindication of this theory he has."

Her quick, elfin grin lit up her sparkling blue eyes for a moment.

His wife hardly ever smiled anymore.

"With a local operation, employing hundreds of people , it would be inexcusable to leave it out. But I have some concerns about this Brubaker," he said in resignation.

"It's stressful to live with an elderly person," she said, consulting certain memories of her own. "Being on disability, he's probably a little isolated. Every other guy his age, at least it must seem that way; they're basically at the peak of their professional working career. All he can do is to sit there. Sit around, read the papers, watch TV, and think too much."

"Of itself, thinking isn't such a bad thing," observed Barnes, sending the story on to the next workstation for pagination. "How do these people on disability fill up their days?"

It might have been empathy; or it might have been a kind of vicarious horror which caused Fred a small shiver.

Chapter Five

A trip to the loonie bin

After a long hot day in the sun, roasting on a roof at 30+ degrees Celsius, Chuck hit the button, and the window of his medium-metallic blue minivan rolled down. The air conditioning wasn't functioning, and he didn't want to spend a hundred and eighty bucks for re-charging.

He could taste the flavour of a day's work as he drove. From that first cup of tea at five-thirty a.m., to the Blim Blorton's coffee, a large double-double on the ride to London. From there; to the coffee out of the urn at his brother and sister in-law's place; and the pizza slices for lunch, and the doughnuts at nine a.m. and three-thirty p.m.

A half a dozen doobies, and thirty or so cigarettes. The taste of asphalt, the taste of insulation. The taste of blood, sweat and toil. The taste of grit, washed down with warm water from a plastic jug. The smell of sweat wasn't overly discernable, but the feel of dried sweat, the damp and tacky feel of the shirt in the armpits and chest areas was a reminder. His nose was full of crust by the end of the day, and probably not working too well.

This time of year, there was often frost on the roof first thing in the morning. On bare plywood, it was very slippery. But you wore long johns, double socks, four or five shirts and sweaters. You warmed up pretty quick. Later, when the sun came out, if you were in a valley oriented to the sun, it got real hot in a big hurry. Sometimes you would peel off a few layers.

Sometimes he brought his shorts and changed in the truck. To be too hot was just plain irritating. Bru absolutely despised the tickle of a ball of sweat, hanging on the end of his nose, wobbling back and forth as he tried to do something.

Such was the lot of a roofer. Yet he liked it well enough. He sucked on a skinned knuckle. That one would heal just fine. When the edges sealed up and began to heal, you had to make sure to let the pus out once in a while. Basically just lift up the edge of the scab with the tip of a clean pocketknife and push out the pus.

Cruising out of London's north end on his way home, he used the cell phone to make a call. He felt like a good son, although he hated talking on the phone in traffic. After thirty rings or so, as he held on and gritted his teeth, finally the old man answered. Bru glanced at the dash clock as he greeted his father.

"I'll be home by about six or six-thirty," Bru reported.

The elder Brubaker hemmed and hawed.

"That's all right, and I'll wait until you get here before I start cooking," the old man finally managed.

Spaghetti night, Bru recalled.

Fuck, why not start now?

But he kept silent.

"There were a couple of cops around here asking about you," his father told him in a stronger, more lucid voice as his post-nap grogginess dissipated.

"What?" grunted Chuck, unsure if he had heard correctly. "Did they have a warrant? A piece of paper?"

"They said someone was worried about you," Mr. Brubaker told him clearly, although Chuck's ears always had a hard time with cell phones.

The wind noise and the sounds of other vehicles interfered with comprehension; and added a level of stress.

"Aw, for fuck's sakes," groaned Brubaker. "Okay. I'll call them and see what it's about."

His dad made noises.

"Anyhow, I'll be home in any case. And don't worry," he told his dad in as strong and confident a tone as he could muster.

Then he rang off, mind racing.

"Jesus, fucking, Christ," he muttered. "That fucking waste-of-skin doctor."

He briefly considered staying in London. But he simply couldn't do it. Think of how upset his dad would be. Think of how worried his mom and step-dad would be; or his kid sister Diane, (hard to believe she was hitting forty next month.) He was hit with some kind of inspiration. A man has rights, doesn't he? Pulling over, he made another quick call.

Predictably, he got a secretary just leaving the office.

"Mr. Hendricks was in court today. He'll be long gone by now," the middle-aged female voice advised. "But I will try and contact him."

Chuck gave her his number and waited by the side of the road, thinking furiously.

What the hell could he do? They'd stick him in for three days for sure, maybe longer.

But he seemed to remember that it took a board hearing or something to keep you any longer than what; ninety days?

"Fucking hell," he groaned, guts rumbling with hunger and other things.

Within seven or eight minutes his phone rang.

"Hello? Mr. Hendricks?" he asked.

After the briefest of courtesies, they got down to the point.

"I think they have one of those Ministry of Health forms for me," he told the man, his attorney in a minor brush with the law on a previous occasion.

"Why do you think they're after you?" asked the lawyer.

"Fuck, Bruce! I just went to the doctor and asked for some pills. I've been depressed for like a year and a half, but I went to the man for help. I don't know what the hell his problem is."

"You pretty much have to go with them," Bruce Hendricks said. "Anyway, if you have any other problems give us a call, and uh; maybe in the future, you should be a little more careful of what you tell your doctor!"

Then he rang off.

The decision was Chuck's and Chuck's alone.

"Aw, for Christ's sakes," he said as he fired up the motor and put it in gear.

Chuck was getting tired of this shit, and that was putting it mildly. Dr. Blatherie, he was at the walk-in clinic. Brubaker would never go back to his old family doctor. Not after that last episode. But he had more important things on his mind right now. Poor Brubaker had a lot to think about, as he drove the hundred and thirty-two kilometres to his home town.

Raging and yelling at the dashboard, he fought against the urge to turn around and go back to London. He calmed himself down as he entered the Lennox surface streets from the superhighway.

He parked in the driveway, shuddering inwardly.

Sure enough, his old man met him at the door.

"Can I have a smoke?" he asked, and Bru impatiently handed him the pack from his left shirt pocket. "Are you going to call the cops?"

"After my shower, I will," responded Bru in a determined, yet morose fashion.

"I'll start supper," the old man said. "As soon as I finish my smoke."

Might as well, figured Brubaker. It would keep the old man busy. There was no telling if he would actually get to eat it or not. Still, the old man had to eat, being a diabetic and all. He chucked his grubby work clothes onto the laundry room floor and headed for the shower.

By the time he dried off and dressed, the aroma of tomato sauce and hot steam from the kitchen made the place so steamy; it felt like he was back up on the roof again. He reached for the phone, and dialed it. Suddenly his mother was at the door! At that exact moment, the dispatcher came on the line. Cheryl was taking off her coat, putting her shoes by the door, and waiting for her hug. She was suddenly bug-eyed by the one-sided conversation.

"It's Chuck Brubaker. You sent a couple of officers around to my house today...yes, I'll wait..."

"Chuck!" she gaped. "Oh, honey, are you in trouble! Have you done something?"

"Argh!"

He waved her away with impatience.

He wasn't having a good day anymore.

"Where are you calling from, sir?" the dispatcher asked.

"I'm at home," he told her in resignation.

"The officers will attend to your residence shortly," she said.

"I know," said Brubaker, in a kind of quiet, Canadian desperation. "I know."

Chapter Six

A few weeks previously; the professor took a walk...

He could not sleep. Rising, he dressed quickly. The moon was full as he left the building. Something called to him. He couldn't resist the impulse. The frosty ground crunched underfoot. He stopped to grab a quick coffee at Mr. D's. A police cruiser went slowly past as he walked. They were used to the sight of him by now.

If the crazy old professor wanted to walk on a cold spring night, so be it. The road led out of town, becoming a two-lane highway that led to Aronka. Over the land to his right the moonlight shone down on the black tree-tops of the forest. It was a time he loved, to be alone on the open road.

The silence was not oppressive. He knew not where, or why, but he was going somewhere. A bridge loomed up ahead in the gloom. He paused, thinking about the shimmering creek that fell over the rocks down there. The nascent sun, about to be reborn, kissed the trees with a pale light.

Impulsively, he swung a leg over the steel barrier and made his way down the grassy slope. There was a limpid light here too, the lightness of snow still sheltered from the warm breezes of early spring.

He found a dry ledge, a cluster of boulders where he could rest. The air had an invigorating chill. It felt like he could stay out all night. Why not? It was Easter; and all the students were gone. He was pretty much alone on campus. No one to answer to. A kind of freedom beckoned.

A risen sun found him walking along the placid, crystalline river. A thin sheet of ice obscured, yet also highlighted deep pools. The shallows revealed colourful gravel bars. Underfoot were multi-hued stones, on all sides; icy bushes encrusted in snow. A little hummock of snow sat like a cap on every stone, the warmer gravel in between them wet and soft.

The river widened out into shallow rapids, ran up against the hillside, and then turned hard to the right.

He noticed something odd.

It was almost like a horizontal slot in the bluff.

He stooped and squinted, peering into the shadows amongst the brush.

The professor was fascinated by the discovery. A lot of the river went past, but a small amount must be diverted into the ground here. Treading lightly on the wet stones, the rapids splashed and splished behind him.

Stooping low, he saw grasses, frozen stiff, and more hole. A huge willow tree had fallen, collapsing the bank, and partially damming the river. With the much-reduced snowfalls of recent years, the trunk hadn't been flushed out by the spring flood. He couldn't see the back, but he could distinctly hear water in there.

It was definitely a tunnel.

Breathing heavily from unaccustomed exertions, his knees felt the cold bite of the snow as he scraped his way under the lip of the overhang. Despite the rising sun, it was dark, cold and gloomy in the cave. He could sit upright, barely. Did this arm of the creek cut right under the finger of hill that separated parts of the ever-turning river? Sometimes the river switched back on itself, creating an 'ox-bow,' before straightening out and then heading on again.

The professor taught journalism to an ever-diminishing pool of students. Bigger schools in larger centers attracted more paying students. With his retirement, the program was finished. He put the resulting ache in his heart away, and focused on the pleasures of the moment.

Directly in front of him chuckled the brook, about two metres across, and thirty millimetres deep. There was a bank of blue ice, and a couple of logs jammed in there. Tracks of tiny feet could be seen, perhaps raccoons, or squirrels, who knows what?

Birds chirped in the trees outside. A shaft of raw sunlight broke into the cave, giving more illumination to the rear. The roof rose up within a few metres. He slithered in, over rocks, lichens, sticks and leaves. Pulling out his tiny pocket flash, he stood.

"Incredible!" he breathed in morbid fascination.

The creek plunged further into the depths of the earth. He followed it, using his light, stepping with care. The occasional wide place offered solace. He saw driftwood, realizing he could build a fire for warmth. He went on further. Looking up, the walls rose on either side, in a gorge that arced over and almost met at the top. It wasn't really a cave at all; more of a cleft; although it was roofed with stone in places. A rock slide a thousand years ago must have blocked this arm of the watercourse. More recent erosion had carved a new notch. The whole river might eventually divert through this channel again. The creek narrowed, and he stood on a flat rock to keep his feet dry. What about a spring flood? Then he relented, having spent too many hours with the Weather Station TV to miss much.

Dry weather was expected all week.

There was magic in the air, in this place.

When he got home, he would pay in all kinds of little arthritic aches and pains. Maybe even a cold. But it was worth it. It was a fantasy, reliving a forgotten part of his youth in this subterranean world.

It was his alone.

"There. I'll have a fire there," he told himself.

Up ahead, a vision. Sunlight streamed into the cavern, and it danced on the rapids of the stream. Keeping his eyes alert, he gathered driftwood as he approached the golden beams of light. Craning his neck, he couldn't see much in the way of detail from up above.

The brightness was too much and it blinded him. He found a bleached old log to sit on, and placed a flat slab of stone to act as a reflector, feeling quite proud of his Boy Scout skills. With a pocketknife more usually used to open the mail, he made some shavings to begin with.

The tinder started right into flame with one match, and never looked back.

Wouldn't it be nice; to return with a tea pot, something to boil water in. Tea bags, sugar...a tin of condensed milk. A spoon, a cup. It would be a relief sometimes.

The aural part was a beauty all of its own. The distant call of birds up above, water flowing over the stones. A light breeze cleared the smoke but made the fire crackle. They were peaceful sounds. A wisp of smoke caught him in the eye. He enjoyed the aroma of the fire, and stayed where he was. Soon enough, the breeze changed and the smoke cleared. He took off his damp shoes, putting them to dry beside the fire. While the heat was nice, the day was almost warm as well. It was a promise of good things to come. He realized with a little sadness that this would probably dry up in summer. In fact the creek would run ten or twenty metres farther down the bank. It would just be a trickle.

Comparatively speaking, it was quiet in here, compared to the roar of the actual river.

In his socks, he went three or four metres and picked up another handful of driftwood. Now came the tiredness of one who has been up all night. Geoff took off his glasses and bent down to drink from cupped hands.

The water was sweet, cold and clear.

"This is the life," he said in reverie, and that was when he noticed some footprints nearby.

His own shoes were a little drier now, he thought, as he idly pondered the prints.

Seems a bit far for walking distance, but a local farmer?

Wonder if someone has a still in here, he grinned.

Kids might know of this place, and their parents never even dreamed of its existence.

Kids on bikes, he thought. He slipped on his shoes. Rising, he gathered his coat tightly around his neck. Head sunk deep in his collar, he prepared to venture forth. Put out the fire with a stick, and stir it up.

Follow the tracks. Just like that.

The decision, once made, was not easily undone.

From time to time he tried to find the sky, so reassuring.

He stood there very quiet and listening, feeling like someone in a James Fenimore Cooper novel. Leatherstocking, that Fatty Bumpo character or someone. Natty. That's it.

A glimpse of the heavens, stark and silent above.

Deeper into the hillside, he could hear wind in the treetops, or perhaps it was an odd echo of the water. Seeing another footprint, he stopped to examine it. It was an original of the first, of that he was almost positive. It was a small foot, but clearly no child.

Something about the distance between the prints, the depth of the heel, bespoke a deeper purpose, a firmer resolve than his own.

This person knew where they were going.

More than mere childhood adventures, he kidded himself. When he came to it, he stood stock-still. He gazed at it in cold, clinical consideration, guts tense; but mind calm.

Now this was really amazing! This was clearly a real cave.

It was like a giant set of stairs. The wet footprints went down into the black depths.

Sculpted by water, sand and gravel, he saw flat terraces with water in the middle, but it looked like better going on each side. The water going over the limestone lip was about two centimetres deep. He pulled out his little pocket flash, and turned it on to check the batteries. This part of the world was known for caves, he remembered.

He had never felt any real curiousity before. So this was what he was missing.

The light looked okay. He decided to go on a little further, although each drop of a metre or more increased his unease. It was fairly easy going. The river was a constant roar, echoing around and around inside the cave and inside of his head.

After one last look at the blackening hole above, he went on for another couple of drops. The cave still descended, but the roof arched upwards. Shouldn't he see some stalagmites? Sure enough, as he pointed the light around, he did find some. This was worth the effort! He had little fear of drowning, and few thoughts of the lonely little apartment he called home. Looking around, the chill had dissipated from his exertions. He examined a pool where moss, algae and stuff grew. He shone the light into the pool's recesses, curious as to what he might see. Small creatures wriggled in the water.

His ears were getting used to the sounds of water. He could hear his footsteps now.

It seemed drier, underfoot. A slight breeze could be felt on his cheeks. It came from up ahead. He was surprisingly confident when he knew that.

On the side of the hall, was a bank of clay such as a child might use for modeling, and it looked like it was being worked at by human hands. Handfuls had been taken out for some unknown purpose. Sticks were being used to dig it out. With a finger he prodded at the edge of a bare footprint, strange enough in itself. It was embedded in damp clay, still soft and wet.

Obviously quite recent.

He rose and went on.

He went d own another step, this one a drop of a metre and a half. If he were to fall and break a leg; he would have big problems. Certainly no one would ever hear him.

The next one went down, a big slab at an angle of about seventy degrees, almost two full metres. He was pretty sure he could make it up again. Down he went.

He played the beam of light around and then kept going.

Why did this adventure not seem irrational? What the heck was he doing in here? Was his life that boring? He also wondered if the light had gone progressively dimmer over the last hour, and his eyes merely gotten used to it? He probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference. It seemed okay. He tried one more big step, one more drop down the slope, and that's when it happened. He slipped, falling heavily, and felt the shock of pain as his spine hit solid bedrock.

In shock, he tumbled over the lip and kept going, end over end. Too quick to comprehend, he hit the bottom of a steep slope, still clutching the light. It took a moment to catch his breath and figure out what happened.

He was grateful to be alive, at that point.

"All right, all right. I can take a hint," he said, gingerly examining himself to see if he was badly hurt, or was it just pain?

The light was pointing at a peculiar group of marks on the sheer face of the nearest wall. His sharp intake of breath shocked his senses with a massive wave of pain.

The sudden movement did it.

He took his time next attempt. In front of him was a bizarre, brightly-painted petro-glyph. A couple of gentle, deep breaths and he was able to sit up. Shins, roughed up arm, twisted knee; and elbow banged up. Left hip almost immobile.

His back didn't feel too well, neither did his left ankle.

With his back to the wall, he studied the painting, as he ever so carefully sought out his pipe and filled it. He puffed away in quiet contemplation. If truth be known, he'd played rugby in worse shape. He should be able to climb back out. He was very calm.

Geoff Pakenham turned off the light to save the batteries, and enjoyed the pain and the silence for a while.

"Now, this is really living," he chided himself.

He heard a noise. It was a new noise.

A different noise.

A mini avalanche, just a tiny handful of disturbed gravel.

"Who's there?" he called into the blackness.

He flipped the switch again. Pointing the light, he searched around the chamber. Nothing. The noise came from over there...nothing. Could have been an animal, he reasoned.

"Anyone there?" he shouted.

No answer, no noise again.

The professor decided it was time to get the hell out of there and go home. Enough for one day. Going back up the slope, all hefty chunks of rock, wasn't so bad. He leaned forward and scuttled crab-wise, with much of his weight supported one-handedly. It was hard to hold the light and climb at the same time. He stopped and surveyed an opening, a little to the left. Working over to it, he was grateful that he hadn't fallen too far. There was another of the ubiquitous footprints in a clump of silt held in a crevice.

He had completely lost interest in them. The trail led up the stairs now. He clambered up the first ledge, and then another. It was oddly-angled and tilted in a way he didn't remember from the way in. Louder now; with water noises in the background again, reassuring in their familiarity.

The faithful flashlight held out. His back, especially the pelvis and hip; ached savagely with a sting that foretold gashes and scrapes. The light held just a hint of yellow in its circular orb. He kept crawling again, up another step, and then came a shock. A blank wall. With the light, he could barely see another of the blasted paintings. Damn! Only one way now; or rather two: a tiny hole, barely big enough to squeeze into, yet pointed invitingly upwards, or back down the way he came.

"Crikey!" he said uncertainly.

He wedged himself into the tube and kept clambering upwards.

There was light! He climbed up and out of the hole. He stood on a wide, mossy ledge looking out over a pond or lake in a grotto. Huge trees ringed it, blocking out the sky like sentinels around the edge of the cliffs, the branches stark and white in their serene reflections.

"Awesome...simply awesome."

He stood tall, breathing deeply in sheer delight.

"Who...you?" came a rasping, guttural voice.

One of the green, slimy boulders at the water's edge was speaking to him!

"Oh, my God!" blurted Geoff Pakenham.

The boulder came to life. As it swished the water, he saw two arms, curiously naked-looking. They were covered in fine spots, smaller than the large mottles on the back and sides.

The professor stood riveted.

"Um, um, just going for a walk," he told the fish-man, as a strangely-intelligent eye regarded him, from one side of the massive, rock-like head, with its obscene tongue moving and quivering.

Then the head turned and the other hideous eye rolled around to look him over.

"Tou...tour-ist?" the grotesque thing asked, easing up directly in front of him.

It was less than three metres away, he noticed in stunned shock.

Oh my God! Was it some kind of freak? Industrial pollution, genetic drift, or random mutation?

What?

"Yes! I'm a tourist," he said to the horrid-smelling creature, stark and evil with its wet, glossy, olive-dark skin.

"We get a few of those," it said.

Its head was turned to regard him with a single, huge, spherical, and baleful eye. A black and shiny eye, with no human emotion anyone could recognize. It straightened up and the professor stared in shock it moved.

Just then the horrid gaping mouth opened up, the lower jaw going right down into the silt-laden water at the rim of the ledge he stood upon. His heart began to beat a little faster. The curiously elongated, bilious yellow tongue shot forth at lightning speed, and slapped, hot, wet and heavy right into the middle of his solar plexus. It stuck there.

"Wha..!" he began.

Then the professor felt his backbone shatter in several places, even as his face and forehead slammed into the great bony upper lip of the monster. He heard a noise like the crackling of twigs in a fire...he couldn't breathe, and he couldn't even see; beyond that last impression of hard ridges inside.

Just like the insides of his cat's mouth....his cat...

Who would feed her?

Then he tried to scream as hot, acid juices were forced under great pressure into his eyes, his nose, and his throat. Up his very asshole...he tried to scream, as powerful muscles contracted.

But it was already too late.

Chapter Seven

More juicy tidbits from the evening paper...

"Fire hits Buncor's cat-cracker," he began in his best Rich Little does Walter Cronkite impression. "For the second time in two days, emergency alarms rang at Buncor's Lennox refinery Monday. Crews battled a fire in the cat-cracker unit around 6:40 p.m. The all-clear was sounded three hours later. According to spokesperson Anton Valeur, monitoring of the site perimeter revealed no off-site environmental impact."

His sister and father sat on the other side of the table in the visiting area. In the other end of the room; a five-foot tall, shuffling lady in a housecoat and slippers kept telling the nurse, 'I wanna go home.'

Bru watched the nurse lead her away to give her another pill. She had been doing that for hours.

"Are you okay?" his sister Diane asked. "How have you been feeling?"

"I'm pissed off," he announced. "But they have to let me out in three days."

"Did we bring the right books?" Frank Brubaker asked.

"They'll do. You brought enough books, and that's all that's really important."

He thought for a moment.

"I'll lose my job, of course. Willy will have to find another helper," but what really hurt was being stuck here. "Willy's got that church job to finish."

To have your freedom taken away; and your dignity, your very freaking humanity.

"You're not supposed to take this kind of thing personally," his sister advised. "Have a nice rest and take things easy for a few days."

Biting back the 'fuck you' reply, he tried real hard to keep silent.

Resentment seethed in him. It was all that miserable son of a bitch Oberon's fault.

"That little bastard LaSally harassed me for fucking three and a half or four years, and that son of a bitch Sergeant Oberon and his crew always made out like I was paranoid and delusional."

It led him here. It was that God-damned dispatcher's fault; as much as anything.

"You should have seen it," he told the old man. "In the elevator, there was a nurse, two cops, two security guards and an orderly. When we got to this floor, and they all walked out, I just stood there and watched them all walk off up the hall. I had to call them back!"

Bru was smiling and ruefully shaking his head

"I said, hey! What about me?"

His dad grinned. Knowing Bru, he wouldn't put it past him.

"The worst part though, was when they made me strip and put on this freaking backless, topless, strapless, neck-less, frontless, shirtless piece of shit on," he griped. "No curtains on the damned windows. All these freaking people in the room. I was really pissed off, and I started stripping and throwing my clothes down on the floor between them and me."

Bru was pissed off because he had a right to make a phone call.

"Not until you put this on, sir!" the nurse kept telling him.

What a fuckin' joke.

No wonder people hated doctors, cops, and the like. Brubaker was sick and tired of being violated, again, and again, and again.

"Oh, dear," said his sister, colour rising in her cheeks.

Bru was funny about his feet.

"Did they make you take your socks off?" his pa asked.

He nodded glumly.

"There I stood, buck naked, with all them idiots staring at me," he said in a low voice.

Bru was in a very dejected state of mind.

"Actually, it turns out I could have used the bathroom," he admitted. "I never really thought about it! But a padded cell has to have its own bathroom, otherwise the staff would always be running back and forth."

"Oh, my God!" gasped Diane, covering her mouth with a hand, a half-laugh in her voice. "Did they really put you in a padded cell?"

"It's not really padded," he said. "But the head of the bed is a couple of feet from the wall, so an orderly can restrain you, and there are actual fuckin' straps on it."

It wasn't all that funny.

How have I been feeling?

He was trying to read the next story that caught his eye.

"How have I been feeling? When I wake up in the morning, the first thought that goes through my head is; 'I have to kill myself.' When I go to bed at night; the last thought that goes through my head is; 'I have to kill myself,'" he said. "That bastard harassed me right out of my home, and now all of a sudden, I'm the crazy one."

Chuck was suffering a kind of depression that sucked at his soul, and never let him rest. A depression going back years. He had suffered through a year and a half on the borderline of suicide. Brubaker worked very hard to get that house, and to keep it.

And for what?

Some obnoxious little prick comes along takes it away again. Bru had suffered depression before in his life, but it became absolutely chronic when he bought that damned house. Years had gone by. Too many wasted years.

"Now the cops got me down as a mental case, and I have no fucking rights at all," he concluded, feeling the corners of his mouth pulling down insistently, and his face begin to tighten up again.

He could feel his jaw jutting out and beginning to work from side to side. He had no control over his own jaw anymore.

"Argh."

He growled deep, deep in the chest and lower throat. Yes, Brubaker was pissed.

Really fucking pissed.

She patted his arm and he put his face to the paper.

"Bad things happen to good people, Chuck," she said gently. "You know we still love you, no matter what happens."

"I'll sleep a lot better knowing that," he muttered.

"We'd better go," said his father.

His old man began the long process of standing up. Diane looked upon him with sympathy, noting the irrepressible gleam in Bru's eyes.

"Would you like us to come see you? Tomorrow night?" she asked, reaching for her purse and keys.

Diane was as tall as Dad, he marveled, although eight or ten centimetres shorter than him. It was always a shock to see her beside a person of normal height. All the Brubakers were tall. Her shoulder-length brown hair was limp. She was tired. She'd had a long day and now this.

"Nah! I'll be fine. I'll just eat in my room, sleep a lot, and read books," he decided. "Thank God they didn't stick me in the ward."

***

He watched their backs retreating and wished he could walk out too. But it would just cause too much trouble; and for what? They'd keep him in longer next time. He so hated seeing the pain in his father's eyes, and he supposed, the wonder in their eyes. The doubt. The doubt. A kind of half-acknowledged shame. A kind of shame you couldn't be proud of, and wear like a badge on a uniform.

The sheer look of bewilderment on dad's face was heart-wrenching.

"Does he have time to eat his supper?" and the smell of home-made spaghetti sauce wafting out of their tiny kitchen.

"I'm sorry sir, he'll have to come with us," was all the poor cops could tell him.

"Please don't handcuff my son. He doesn't need that," his ma's tragic dignity, not concealing a kind of terror.

"My son," she wept.

"I love you too, mom."

Two cops in his old man's living room.

The female cop stood there looking up at him.

"We're not judging you, sir."

Goddamn you all to hell.

'My brother—the mentally ill person.'

'And what do you do for a living, Mr. Brubaker?'

"Fuck you. God damn you all to hell," he said into empty space.

At that exact moment a nurse came into the room to straighten up the exercise mats or something and he felt kind of rude about that. Pretend to read the paper.

Reinforcing it to them was a bad idea.

"Air pollution and disease linked," he told her hindquarters as she worked in a half-aware manner.

"Oh?" she responded.

She twitched one corner of her face in his direction. She was pretty, and on the high side of thirty-five, even.

He noticed, and went on.

"A U.S. study identifies a link between airborne particulate matter and cardiovascular disease," he read aloud.

He was trying to imitate Wolf Snitzler but found it hard going.

"This should interest readers because Lennox area residents breathe some of the worst air in the country."

"Uh, huh. That's true," she said, digging in a cupboard.

"Nice to get some independent verification around here once in a while," Bru quipped and she giggled a bit.

She found what she was looking for and headed out of the room.

'We have seen a dramatic increase in the number of bad air days,' according to Dora Benouchi, an occupational hygienist at Lennox Health Centre. 'It represents a very real health hazard for those with respiratory and heart problems.'

Brubaker quickly absorbed the rest of the article, the gist of which was that in a study commissioned by the environment ministry, Lennox was the city with the highest levels in the entire province in terms of ozone and fine particulate matter, the prime constituents of smog.

According to Dr. Ram Bamtankumam's report in the September 2009 issue of the Magazine of Chemical Investigations; 'Small particles of pollutants less than one-tenth the width of a human hair might trigger blood clots. By studying the effects on mice, researchers concluded inflammation of the lungs leads to death from cardiovascular disease.'

"Tell me something I don't know," he muttered.

He had plenty of time on his hands. The paper was a prime source of intelligence about the enemy. In a sense; Brubaker was always working. Always on duty, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five and a quarter days a year. Considering he didn't get paid for it, and got damned little satisfaction out of it, he considered giving it up sometimes.

Even as he read, he was thinking up his next stunt.

Chapter Eight

Lennox was a small, grimy, northern industrial town...

With a population of sixty-eight thousand, Lennox was a small, grimy, northern industrial town.

Geographically sprawling and covering a diversity of terrain, one minute you were downtown, and then you were out in the country in about five minutes. At times, it felt like there were three times as many cars on the road, but not three times as many roads.

As the city matured and prospered, development moved out of the core and up the lakeshore to the northeast. The southwest tended to be big, Victorian homes converted to low-rent apartments. While there were a few enclaves of nicely-restored period homes, for the most part the southwest corner of the city was working class bordering on slum. This is where the social assistance recipients lived, the disabled, and the mentally ill; as well as those who preyed upon them.

Everyone else was working-poor, or the elderly, or on unemployment, or just plain criminals.

Due to the large percentage of single-family units and the age of the community, it was well-treed, with large maples, oaks, sycamore, and ash. Many were beautiful old trees, some of impressive size and girth. The newer neighbourhoods to the northeast, the so-called, 'estate lots,' were treeless. They were built on prime farmland. This black-soil former wetland was capable of growing truck vegetables such as potatoes, cabbages and onions. That part of the city was mostly floodplain and former marsh habitat. It was drained by ditching and the re-routing of creeks in a previous century.

Lennox was a study in contrasts. In the southwest, it was a sprawling mixture of heavy petro-chemical industry and post-industrial decay. This included abandoned properties of all sizes. The impoverished neighbourhoods were here, not least of which was the Nassagewaya Reserve, composed of several thousand hectares of woodland within the city limits. It was also completely surrounded by chemical plants.

In the far, far northeast, the homes were tucked under oaks. Gently-rolling terrain indicated former dunes, and there were savannah-like grasslands around ponds and creeks. Here the homes ranged from a few hundred grand up into the millions.

The southeastern part of the city was still farmland.

While not exactly pristine wilderness, it was pastoral and placid, complacent even as smokestacks loomed tall on the western horizon. These people held stewardship. They were stewards of the land. In some cases, maybe the same land and the same family for a hundred and fifty years. To them, city people; even those who might hold the same job for thirty or forty years, or who might own family businesses that had been going for three or four generations, well; they seemed 'flighty,' or transient, to the farmer's way of thinking.

Tucked away like a zoo in the northwest corner, lay the village of Port Harold.

The village successfully resisted the city's amalgamation bid, whereas the former Lennox Township hadn't. The result of amalgamation was a geographically-sprawling municipality, considering its small population. Brubaker wondered at times if the city fathers hadn't bitten off rather more than they could chew in their efforts to grow their tax-base.

According to some guy named Boucette on the Ben Cockburn P-CAC interview show, 'Streetcar neighbourhoods generate income for the city, and sprawling suburban housing units are a black pit, a sinkhole for tax dollars.'

Bru figured it out.

If a suburban home has a hundred feet of frontage, then it takes a hundred feet of sewer pipe to connect two units, right? A hundred feet of road, a hundred feet of curbing, a hundred feet of this, and a hundred feet of that.

'In the old-fashioned neighbourhoods, the businesses on the ground floor paid taxes.

Units above those businesses paid taxes. Everyone in the neighbourhood, rich or poor, agreed on the need for day care,' Boucette said. 'In the suburbs, family values are now inward-looking.'

Brubaker immediately thought of the city bus service. The people in China Grove at the far northeast boundary had been screaming for bus service for years. The one time the city attempted it on an experimental basis, ridership was so low, it was a fiasco. It was discontinued. Yet a few people in China Grove were still agitating for the bus service, even with $769,000 homes; their SUV's and BMW's. They all had sixty-foot boats sitting in the driveway on trailers. Many had mobile homes that cost more than a small working-class house in the south end!

What was the real problem? They didn't like paying taxes that went to support bus service in the rest of the city, if they weren't getting it too. That was the new family values.

The same thing with day care. Why pay taxes to make spaces for poor people's kids in daycare? The middle class hated, feared and loathed the poor; even as they condemned single moms on welfare for not trying to make some kind of better life for their children. They were expected to work for minimum wage, pay a babysitter, and take the bus to work.

So far, every attempt to build new geared-to-income housing in Lennox had failed.

The neighbours always said; to quote, 'We're afraid it will affect our property values.'

Property values were the only values they had.

"Fucking jerks," he muttered.

Bru had a lot of time on his hands, and spent much of it thinking.

Situated at the southern end of Lake Kandechio, the St. Irene River drained south to Lake Goddawannapiss, and hence to the St. Lawrence. Located on the west bank of the St. Irene River was the U.S. town of Port Nugent, Michigan. The two cities were joined by the double span of the Clearwater Bridge. In the days of his youth, Brubaker and friends often walked over the bridge to Port Nugent, but those innocent days were long gone.

With Free Trade, long line-ups, and the sheer volume of traffic, foot and bicycle traffic were no longer permitted on the bridge. A yearly marathon run occurred, which took in both towns. To the average Canadian, the American obsession with terror threats made cross-border shopping harder. You might have four hours of waiting to cross the bridge both ways. No one took terrorism seriously in Lennox.

Frank Brubaker used to cross the river to buy a gallon of milk! What some people will do to save fifty cents. Those days were gone.

Like many such events, the marathon took place on a Sunday morning. Diane ran in it last year, and hoped to do it again. Another tradition was dead; the cross-river swim, which Brubaker had watched as a boy. With the number of ships and pleasure craft on the river; it was just too dangerous. The memory of two hundred swimmers diving into the river, about a kilometre wide in Bru's estimation at that point; was definitely worthwhile.

His old man swam the river, but only once, and with a couple of King Scouts rowing a rented dory alongside as he stroked across. That must have been about 1947.

'We used to swim bare-ass right in Lennox Bay, there at the Foot of King George V Street,' according to Frank Brubaker.

Lennox was supported by the petrochemical industry, much of it built in 1942 at the height of World War II. Polycor, a Crown Corporation, produced synthetic rubber for the war effort, when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour cut off supplies of natural rubber from the plantations of southeast Asia. The company located in Lennox due to the presence of Colonial Oil; original developers of the Oil Wells discovery; (after buying out and amalgamating with others.) Eventually Chemical Alley was comprised of twenty major companies and dozens of smaller, ancillary operations. The Polycor Corporation had been bought and sold a dozen times since then.

With pipeline links to Alberta, and major refiners to the east; tank farms, lots of big power plants and transmission lines, railway tracks and superhighways, Lennox had a declining population, and a low birthrate. The residents of Lennox were getting older.

During the Cold War, it was common talk that the Soviets were targeting Lennox as a major strategic site.

Perhaps that was mostly ego talking.

In the fifties, sixties, and seventies; there was plenty of work, and the standard of living was high. The first oil crunch in 1973 brought a few small import cars. Otherwise there was hardly a ripple in the collective consciousness. The recessions of the eighties and the nineties, and the noughts; had their effect. Yet life soldiered on pretty much as before. The bars did their business, the hockey club persisted, and the youthful cruised around in hot cars.

Lovers leapt, while old folks and kitty-cats slept.

The residents of Lennox seemed blithely unaware that change could happen. Perhaps they believed that if it did happen, it could only be for the better. Like maybe some big foreign automaker would come in and set up a manufacturing plant that would create thousands of high-paying jobs, and attract new investment, save the city from bankruptcy, and stop everyone's kids from moving away for no good reason at all.

Chapter Nine

Shrinks are people too...

"You seem a little insecure," murmured Dr. Chickadee, a West African with a deep, sonorous, cultured voice.

The man was Cambridge-educated. In his Nehru jacket and saddle shoes, Brubaker was sure glad he didn't have the doctor's nerve in his tooth.

What was he supposed to say?

"You seem well educated," he began affably enough.

"Hah!" guffawed the doctor. "You seemed a little paranoid when you were brought in to the hospital."

Bru calmly raised an eyebrow.

"Tell me about the letters," Chickadee added in afterthought.

Bru could read him like a book.

"I write letters to the editor. I sent one out to twenty-five different papers in Ontario," Brubaker replied. "I'm trying to get a raise for the disabled. Five percent a year for the next five years."

"Do you think you can do it?" queried the doctor.

"Someone has to talk to the bastards," noted Bru. "Most people who talk to the government have some kind of an interest. Why not me? Would you write a letter to the government?"

The doctor studied something in his file folder.

"In your most recent letter to the editor, you seem to relate pollution to the city government and the police budget?"

Interesting.

This was the guy who claimed not to read the paper; because it was too much, 'bad news.' He just, 'didn't have time.'

Bru never forgot stuff like that. Not that Chickadee was a bad guy. Bru liked him well enough. But he most assuredly wasn't, 'your friend.'

Chickadee liked writing prescriptions, he recalled.

"Pollution is a crime. Where are the cops when you need them?" asked Brubaker. "All of our leaders are absolute cowards when it comes to anything that might reflect poorly on the city."

He thought for a moment.

"You want the truth, Doc? The Lennox cops are incompetent, and badly-trained. They have no honour and integrity. They lack moral fibre, and violate the civil and human rights of suspects, witnesses and victims, including disabled people. It's part of their daily routine."

And that's probably one of the reasons why I'm here, but it would seem too paranoid.

Cops lie. Cops lie all the time.

"That dirty little weirdo harassed me for fucking years down on Sigourney Street. As soon as I got done with him, the cops, and the courts; the fucking ODSP was all over me like a dirty shirt," Brubaker told the man, and he was getting tired of trying to explain the facts of life to ignorant people.

"If you threaten someone often enough, they may become a little paranoid," he noted.

"It's a normal human reaction. You know, I've often wondered if someone was calling up the ODSP and giving them anonymous tips. Oh, I don't know; maybe stuff about me working for cash under the table, stuff like that. Anonymous letters. That's about the level of what I've had to deal with around here."

"And did you?" asked the shrink.

Bru felt his face tighten up.

"No," he said.

Doctor Chickadee remained silent, looking inscrutable over the top of his note pad, with his brown, watery and wishy-washy eyes looking sort of skeptical.

"Look. When I started my business, I knew the guy was all over me like a dirty shirt," Chuck tried to explain. "I knew my only protection against that little creep; and against the ODSP for that matter, was to keep good books and account for every fuckin' dime, and every fuckin' minute of my time."

"And you don't feel that's paranoid?" asked the doctor.

"I was right," said Bru. "I've known the ODSP was scum for a long time. They made that clear when I bought my house."

The ODSP freaked out when he bought a house for no money down and three hundred bucks a month! Besides. It was only sound business practice. But when he said it, it was always a sign of mental illness. Once they had you tagged, everything you said was written down and held against you in some way. He knew that. He couldn't even attempt to tell the doctor that. They tended to have thin skins, and resented any implied criticism of the system which paid them the big bucks unquestioningly.

If you tried to be diplomatic, they would read too much into it.

"How do you feel now?" asked the doctor.

"Well; you fuckers screwed up the only job I had. The only job I could get," said Bru.

"Other than that; I despise the police with a passion that surprises me. As far as I'm concerned, they're all a gutless bunch of piss-ants, with way too much arbitrary power."

"We're just trying to help you, Chuck," said Chickadee.

"Help me get rid of the Lennox Police Department. As long as we have them bums, every damned one of us is endangered. That asshole Oberon, remember that fuckin' murder-suicide where the Chinese guy shot his girlfriend in Confederation Park? It was in all the papers. Sergeant Oberon says, and I quote, 'we have to assume the gun was smuggled in from the U.S.'"

Brubaker thought about his point.

"Any cop who walks into a crime scene with a set of assumptions is an idiot. And I've seen Oberon's work."

"What about the man who bothered you before?" asked the doctor.

"I've never retaliated against that man in any way, shape or form, and I never will," said Brubaker.

"Would you care to share the reason why?"

"It's self-evident," Bru told him. "He was always trying to push my buttons. If I went over and punched him in the nose, it would have justified everything that went before. I won't give him, or you, the satisfaction."

"Well, I think we've had a pretty good session," said the doctor. "Is there anything else you want to share?"

"You'll be letting me out of here Saturday or you'll be hearing from my lawyer."

"No need to be rude, Mr. Brubaker."

"No. Of course not. You take my freedom, my job, and my dignity. My very fucking humanity. You label me paranoid and delusional, and treat me like a bug every chance you get. Perhaps it's because of my working-class roots, but you just assume that I must be a violent person. Or as Sergeant Oberon wrote in documents submitted to the court, 'An unexploded bomb waiting for a chance to go off.' But there's no need to be rude, sir."

The session was obviously over. Brubaker got up and walked out without so much as a by-your-leave.

Chapter Ten

"City has its priorities mixed up..."

Dear sir;

Two years ago, the police were asked to cut the budget. They didn't do it, so council imposed $100,000 in cuts. Last year essentially the same thing happened again. A $200,000 cut was cock-a-doodle-dooed from the rooftops.

Remember how Mayor Pedlar abstained from voting on the police budget, and then praised it about ten days later? Mrs. Marie Phyllis voted against the budget, but it safely passed. When council set a budget for the police, the cut was shouted from the rooftops by the press, yet the police simply ignored it. Last time Phyllis was in the paper, she was all for it.

This year they are $279,000 over budget. It's part of a pattern, one clearly visible all over town. The provincial and federal governments have committed $17.1 million in total for the Blythe Street Sewer Project, a $30 million project, yet council is concerned with railway wastelands projects, a glittering glass restaurant, (built at public expense,) at Confederation Park, and a Mayor Hope Pedlar Memorial Art Gallery.

In the flood of 1996, about 2,900 south-end homeowners made claims, resulting in a huge liability for the city. After a rainstorm, Lennox Bay is brown...just brown.

"Is that what I think it is?" a fisherman asked one day.

"Yes it is, sir," was all I could say.

The condoms floating by were a pretty good clue. The truth is, our city is one of the biggest polluters on the Great Lakes. This town is run by a big political machine. One that perpetuates itself and only thinks of its own self-interest. The general public may be forgiven for a short attention span, when putting bread on the table is a priority for so many. The press seems afraid to draw even the most obvious conclusions. They are 'objective,' which means they don't wish to be seen with their thumb on the scale. By ignoring the problems of our civic government, the thumb is on the scale. The press should serve the higher goddess. Her name is not 'Power,' or 'Money,' or 'Law.' Her name is 'Truth,' sir.

There must be truth, sir.

— Chuck H. Brubaker

Chapter Eleven

Sounds like the old man's having a three-beer night...

The phone rang at about eleven-thirty p.m. It was his old man.

"I'm drunk," he said.

From the slurring of his words the truth was apparent.

"Need a ride home?" asked Chuck.

His old man went to a dance.

"What about Darlene?" Chuck inquired.

Sounds like a three-beer night.

"Shum...some friends from Pistrolia are taking her home," his dad managed.

"Give me about ten minutes, and wait by the front door," Bru said.

Tired as he was, it was probably better than having the old guy cruising the streets at twelve kilometres an hour, with RIDE checks all over the place these days. The Volvo could safely sit overnight.

Fifteen minutes later, Brubaker picked up his old man and headed south down Tom Longboat Boulevard. Turning left on Currie Street, a couple of kilometres would see them safely home. As he motored at a fuel-saving fifty-five k's; he noticed a vehicle behind them was following just a little too close.

"If you turn a map of Ontario sideways, it looks like an elephant, and Owen Sound is the asshole," his old man was saying.

Chuck grinned reluctantly. He really wasn't in the mood. He was awful hard on the old guy sometimes, that much he knew. He just couldn't help it, when the blackness fell upon him.

"I got that feeling coming over me, over me, yeah..." went the song on the radio.

Stone Temple Pilots, 'Unglued.'

The guitar solo unwound its angst as he drove.

His father was talking.

"If you drop a raisin in a glass of water it will only sink halfway," and Frank was looking expectantly at him. "Who was the first U.S. president to wear underwear?"

The old man must have run into some conversationalists this evening.

"Did you hear about the guy who dropped dead shoveling snow?"

Brubaker grinned.

No stopping the old man with three beers in him. And winter was coming.

"His wife said, 'At least he died doing something he loved...'"

Then Big Frank dozed off. Bru's involuntary smile quickly faded.

"Uh, huh," he responded obligingly.

Dad seemed to have lost the train of thought.

Brubaker despised tailgaters, who normally only behave like that when behind the wheel. When he came to the next block, the light was red. The vehicle behind them got within a foot of the rear bumper. A light snoring came from the seat beside him.

Thank God for that.

"Asshole," muttered Bru.

As the light turned green, the vehicle stuck close behind, and his anger button was definitely being pushed. His paranoia button was being pushed as well. Another red light loomed up ahead. The blocks in the downtown area were short. The vehicle dropped back, and the high beams came on. Suddenly the vehicle was shooting up at them from behind as he watched the mirrors and the road in front. The other guy was honking the horn now.

"Honk! Honk!"

The glare was blinding in the mirrors. As they moved along, streetlights flashed on and off the windshield of the following car.

"Fuck!" he said.

The bastards, he could see two of 'em in spite of the glare through the windscreen, locked up the brakes and slid to within a foot or two of his rear bumper; even as he was braking for the next stop light. Luckily the light turned green just at that exact moment.

With a touch of throttle he went on again.

"Wha!" gasped the old man, lost in his own personal fog.

"Hold on!" Chuck blurted.

He peered in the mirror at the blue Chevy Blazer, about a 1996; with a little rust around the rear dog legs. Two males...they were coming at him again. While not ignorant enough to jam on the brakes, neither would Bru speed up to give the fellatio-performers any satisfaction. Neither he nor the old man had a cell phone. He forgot his. The old man was too set in his ways.

"You dirty little cocksuckers," he grunted. "Arrgh!"

He was just praying for them to pass in front, then pull him over and get out of the vehicle. The license number was familiar enough; or so he thought, although the last two digits were a bit of a blur.

But he couldn't get a good look at the driver. They finally peeled off down a side street, tires screeching. The vehicle was swaying from side to side due to bad shocks and low tire pressures, he surmised. Maybe they were just drunk.

"Who was that?" his dad gaped out the window on his side.

"Son of a bitch!" he said. "Friends of Mr. LaSally, presumably."

He knew the vehicle, but not everyone who drove it. Not by sight. Could have been a son, a relative of the old bitch who lived around the corner from LaSally...hard to say.

But that's where the vehicle was from.

Even then, he didn't have enough, 'evidence.'

"No point in calling the cops," he told his father. "I don't feel like going to jail or the loonie bin tonight."

A venomous hatred filled his heart, overwhelming in its sheer intensity.

"Who were those guys?" asked his dad again.

"Pip squeaks," said Brubaker. "Just pip squeaks."

Just then a cop cruiser whipped out from a side street and snaked up onto his tail.

"Aw, for fuck's sakes," Chuck said.

Sure enough, they were pulled over. The cop car stopped a hundred metres behind them. The lone officer got out. As Bru watched in the mirror, the cop swaggered up to the window. It took a while.

Were they trying to get him to run?

Is that why they parked a hundred metres back?

"I'll bet she practices that gunfighter walk in front of the mirror," he muttered.

The police officer eventually stood beside his door, shining a light into the interior. Bru suddenly realized the stench of alcohol permeated the vehicle pretty thoroughly.

"Sir, you seem to be driving a little erratically," she said.

"I'm so sorry! I really didn't mean to turn you on," he grunted.

"I said erratically, not erotically. Would you step out of the vehicle, sir?"

She made him do the whole field sobriety thing. He resisted the temptation to skip, or show off his dancing skills. After going through it twice, he did skip through it the third time.

She didn't even crack a smile.

"Did you see them guys following us?" he asked.

"Did you do something to provoke them, sir?" she asked, ever so sweetly.

All that proved was that she really was a cop and not an imposter. She ran his plate before making the stop. She knew who he was.

"Still the same old Lennox P.D., I see," he noted mildly. "Why did you pull me over, anyway?"

"Suspicious vehicle in a school zone," she informed him matter-of-factly.

"It's freaking midnight!" he blurted. "It's Saturday night!"

"Sir, everything you say, can and will be taken down and used against you in a court of law."

"Stop kissing me officer, and please take your hand off my bum," he said clearly and succinctly, gazing deeply into her startled blue eyes, consciously letting the light blaze out from his inner depths.

"Oh, yeah. You know you want me," he assured her, as she stood flatfooted in stunned speechlessness.

She swallowed and took a deep breath, blushing furiously. Then her anger dissipated.

"I'll catch you later," she mumbled, and then wandered back in the direction of her cruiser.

At last they were home and he could go to bed, the last refuge of the truly unhappy.

***

Next thing he knew, it was three-thirty a.m. and Bru was wide awake. He went to pee upstairs, in the bathroom he shared with the old man. He grabbed yesterday's paper off of the kitchen table and brought it down to his, 'basement apartment.' Brubaker rented the basement from his dad, as otherwise the ODSP would have slashed his benefits. There was no way he would ever be able to save up first and last month's rent if that happened.

It wasn't happening now; but he saw no reason to penalize his old man. Why should Chuck live for free? Anyway, fuck the shit-ass Ontario government for its smug, middle-class, bourgeois ignorance.

He began to read at the little kitchen table which he never ate off of. Bru hung onto a few items in the rather forlorn hope that he might have a home of his own again someday.

He squinted in the yellowing light of the overhead incandescent.

Overhead he heard certain little noises.

"Aw, fuck," he muttered.

Sure enough, the old man was getting up, making the bed, shuffling to the bathroom. More noises. The old man headed for the kitchen. Water running, filling up the kettle.

"Jesus H. Christ, how the fuck am I ever going to get a minute to myself?" he asked

the walls as the shower started up in the back of the house.

Now the kettle was whistling. Sighing, he went up to make a pot of tea. Absent-minded old sot. He went back to reading. It was already the start of a really bad day.

On the bright side, that lazy cunt O'Keefe had finally gotten off his ass and done some reporting.

Chapter Twelve

City tops toxic emissions...

Lennox faces a huge air pollution problem. The non-profit environmental law firm EcoInjustice says sixty-two large industrial facilities located within twenty-five kilometres of the city emitted more than 131,000 tonnes of pollutants last year, or thousands of kilograms per resident. Of these facilities, forty-six are in Ontario and sixteen in Michigan.

"What strikes me about air pollution in the Lennox area, is the immense quantity of toxic chemicals emitted," said Elynn MacBugall, author of the report entitled, 'Exposing Canada's Chemical Alley.'

MacBugall analyzed data collected under the National Pollutant Release Inventory as well as the U.S. Toxic Release Inventory. Industrial facilities on both sides of the border are required by law to report yearly on certain air pollutants which are released.

'Lennox emits more than one-fifth of Ontario's greenhouse gas emissions from industrial facilities,' the story read. 'This poses a serious threat to human health.'

"There is growing evidence that the Nassagewaya residents as well as city residents are suffering a host of health problems associated with exposure to these chemicals," says Arnold Murphy, of the Occupational Health Clinic in Schmedleyville.

"The Lennox area is one of the worst pollution hotspots in Canada," said Chief of the Nassagewaya First Nation Washington George. "The report highlights the need for government to protect public health."

The report called for tougher enforcement of existing environmental laws. The report was not all doom and gloom. Between 2005 and 2009 combined air pollution releases declined nine percent in the Lennox area.

'This is driven by only a few facilities. Polyox Corp has lowered emissions by 2,165,917 kilograms, mainly n-hexane and chloromethane; and Lennox Generating Station, also reduced emissions, (mainly hydrochloric acid,) by 1,008,255 kilograms.'

"Holy fuck..." breathed Brubaker in amazement.

Last year figures were available 2006...Lennox 5,669 tonnes of air pollutants...

Sudbury, 4,574...Hamilton, 3,334...Toronto, 2,829; Oshawa, 1,939; followed by Windsor, Kitchener and Thunder Bay each, with twelve or thirteen hundred tonnes.

'Holy, fucking shit,' thought Brubaker.

While O'Keefe had the facts, Bru was aware that he had somehow intuitively scooped the bastards.

"All you had to do was look out your front door," he griped, referring to the Guardian Standard's building overlooking the St. Irene River, with Chemical Alley belching out smoke seven-hundred-fifty metres to the south.

The phone rang. Awful early for a call.

It was his little buddy from up the street.

"Can you drive me to the pharmacy?" Nibbles abruptly asked.

He looked at the clock, which said, 'six a.m.'

"Argh! When do they open?" he grumbled.

"Eight o'clock," Nibbles replied. "I got to get my drink."

Brubaker sighed deeply. Drive Nibbles to get his methadone. He had time for a cup of Blim Blorton's and then it would be time to get back to work. Two hours to go.

"Okay," he said and hung up.

And on CrapTV News Channel, surely the disgrace of Canadian journalism; coming in from the cold, over the airwaves and out of the screen, causing him to hit the 'mute' button:

'Today's top story: Biker Chihuahua.'

"Holy, crap!"

The dog had goggles, and a scarf, and a helmet. His owner had him up on the fuel tank, driving around in circles to let the cameras get him.

"I wish you could learn to do that," Brubaker told the cat.

He chuckled Butt Plug under the chin as the animal lay across his lap. It began to purr anew.

"Meow?" asked the cat.

"Maybe someday, eh?" replied Bru, "Like when hell freezes over."

Calls renewed for health study...

A scathing report that shows enormous quantities of toxic chemicals are polluting Lennox and vicinity has prompted renewed calls for a human health study. According to a spokesperson from the Lennox Environmental Association, the study's 'inferences,' suggesting a link between industrial contaminants and health impacts on local residents, 'need to be substantiated.'

The association of nineteen Chemical Alley firms has offered to pay for a major study, one designed to determine whether Lennox residents suffer more from air pollution than others in the province. According to sources, the offer was turned down by community leaders; 'who support the need for a study but don't want it paid for by industry.'

In light of the newest study by EcoInjustice, Lennox Environmental Association spokesperson Rob Knackerelli said it's more important than ever to find out if a link exists, "And to lay to rest the fears and concerns of area residents."

"Gotcha, motherfucker," thought Bru. "If he's willing to study the air, it must be the water."

"We're still willing to help with funding," he said. "Our members understand the study must be conducted in such a way that the results are not presupposed. We're willing to help fund it, but do not wish to lead it."

"Don't want to take responsibility, more like," muttered Bru. "They'll dispute the results as soon as it's done, and point out all the objections they made to the terms of reference."

"This report makes a lot of inferences, so we need to find out if these things are real," Knackerelli stated.

"Oh it's real, all right," muttered Brubaker. "It's real, you son of a bitch."

Lennox County Warden Elroy Jarnes strongly agreed.

"This is fuel on the fire. We need that study. That's the first thing I was thinking when I heard about the report."

"Sure it was, you fucking dink," growled Bru.

For two years, Jarnes has been working with a committee to get a study underway. So far Health Canada has not committed funds, stating, 'Business and community leaders need to get together and agree on the nature, focus and intent of the study.'

"Pinning down the methodology is difficult," admitted Jarnes. "Residents need to know if they suffer more effects from pollution than other areas of the country, and why."

"It's not news that Lennox has high toxic emissions," says Jarnes. "That's one of the side effects of industry. We need to determine if there are related health problems."

"As a citizen of Lennox, I find this EcoInjustice report disturbing," said Knackerelli. "We're being picked on. The industry is making improvements. It's a long process. We're still working on it."

'Police contract, 'lucrative,' cost 'staggering...'

Hidden costs will a have drastic impact on the city budget in a 'staggering' Lennox Police Services contract, say critics. The Police Services Board approved the deal last week. It gives the 110 uniformed officers on the force a ten percent hike over the term of the contract. The 89 civilian employees get nine per cent over the same time. A constable with four years of experience will be paid $85,908 per year, up from $78,099. Not disclosed in last week's announcement are additional costs. 'Responsibility pay,' a kind of retention pay, will cost the city an additional $1.9 million per year, according to Hadley Monroe, director of corporate services.

"This means a constable with eight years experience will get an extra three percent.

After 17 years that increases to six percent; at 23 years it climbs to nine percent," he explained.

Additional benefits will cost $1.2 million a year.

Former city councilor Ralph Bungey was incensed.

"This is a very, very lucrative contract, given the atmosphere of manufacturing and Chemical Alley job losses, as well as the pending closure of Scow Chemical in 2011. These increases are way out of line. We can't afford to absorb this on top of the fire contract."

Boyce Krefeltz, director of financial services for the Lennox Police Services, wouldn't disclose the total cost of the new contract. Some money was put aside in the last budget 'in anticipation,' but that figure also couldn't be made public.

"Those are the kinds of things we don't disclose." Krefeltz said.

Former Board chairperson Mrs. Marie Phyllis has 'serious concerns' about the impact on the budget. She noted the board has already directed the police administration to find $400,000 in savings, and that property taxes went up four percent last year.

"They're not going to find those savings when you throw this increase in," she said, "They could be almost $2.5 million in deficit."

She called the figures 'staggering,' and predicted that even the most junior police officers will enter, 'The Sunshine Club,' of public sector employees earning $100,000 per year or more.

"The police are extremely happy, and why shouldn't they be? They're getting everything they could ever wish for in their wildest fantasies. Everybody else will have to tighten their belts, take second and third jobs, sell their homes, or go hungry."

The settlement also affects firefighters, whose contract is linked to that of the police.

Due to contract terms, the firefighters get a three percent retroactive increase, in addition to a first-class firefighter's pay of $78,052 as of the end of 2009.—Les Purvis

***

Brubaker finished reading the paper, his mind going full blast. Glancing at the clock, it was six-thirty. Better grab a shower and get a coffee at Blim's. Usually a loner, there were mornings when he simply couldn't abide conversation, not even the old man.

Especially his old man.

Some mornings he was so intent upon his own misery. It seemed like every morning he went though some kind of goddamned epiphany. Bru wasn't good for much before he had his shower, his morning coffee and a half a dozen cigarettes.

Letting the pounding hot spray play on his lower back; Bru felt a brief moment of sadness. He had been alone a long time, except for the old man. With few friends, being on disability these last few years, he didn't get a lot of opportunities to socialize. On his income, he would have to be truly insane, or something of an infernal optimist, to even consider looking for any kind of half-decent girlfriend.

He rinsed the last of the dandruff shampoo, 'Neck and Armpit,' down the drain and shut off the water. He remembered to push in the knob on the spigot. Otherwise the next guy would get a cold blast of water on the back of the head when he turned on the shower. If he wasn't alert. Pulling back the curtain, he stepped onto the ratty green bath mat, which his old man refused to replace.

"I like it," according to Big Frank.

It was extremely humid in there, with the inefficient ceiling suck-out fan moaning and groaning away on dry bearings.

He dried himself carefully. To go out with wet ears was asking for ear trouble. To put on his gotchies without thoroughly drying his crotch was to get chafing on the bike. To be scrupulously fair, balanced, objective and impartial, Bru wasn't a bad-looking man. He just didn't have an income that would allow dating. Charles had lost confidence in so many ways. He sucked in his gut, and took a deep breath. In romance novels, the heroine always takes the opportunity to describe herself while standing naked in front of the mirror. He noted a strange grin. Funny thing was, while the back still ached, while it would rule the rest of his life, he didn't look in too bad of a shape.

Six-foot-five, one hundred and ninety pounds, brown hair and eyes.

Long skinny face. Still got most of his hair. Grey at the sides. Shoulders not super wide, but not sloping or too narrow. Chest not impressive. Big hands. Good hands; pretty good upper arms, muscular forearms bulging with veins. Long skinny legs, but there were signs of a thickening and re-definition of his upper legs. The knees had been giving him a lot of trouble for a couple of years. Turning around, even at his age; there was no sign of sagging. No sign of that infamous family trait, 'the world-famous Brubaker disappearing buttocks.'

His belly was still pretty flat, especially when he stood up straight.

"Forty-fucking-eight," he muttered.

It was so hard to believe sometimes.

How come he still felt like a confused teenager a lot of the time?

No muscle tone in the lower back. Nothing he could do about that. Looking back at his good, honest, if slightly sardonic face, he remembered what she said all those long years ago.

"Puppy-dog eyes."

It's a good thing he bought the bike. Several years ago, he'd been having a lot of pain in the knees. With a bad back, exercise is somewhat difficult. His knees used to buckle on him going up the stairs. Not anymore. They might give a little twinge sometimes while riding. When that happened, he just slowed down and took it easy for a while. He rode through it. Brubaker began to scrape the persistent and obnoxious growth that had dogged him since he was about fifteen. He had the most patchy and uneven whiskers of anyone he knew. Chuck had a lot of scar tissue. The one on the lip gave him real character. The teeth, not so good—one too many fights as an adolescent determined to get the better of the schoolyard bullies that were giving him and his kid brother Willy a hard time.

The faint s-turn of the scar on his left cheek glowed pallid through the growth. Hack, hack, hack. The fishhook, thin and faint, that seemed to come out of the left corner of the mouth...hack, hack, hack. Tap the razor on the edge of the sink, (whack, whack, whack,) rinse it out...hack, hack, hack. The scar under the chin, the scar on the chin, now time for the other side. It was the kind of job you don't quit halfway. More pale lines were visible between the clumps of black stubble.

He grinned at himself in the mirror. Bullies were different people when you caught them alone, away from the social safety net of their droogs. Chuck had discovered a lot of interesting places, people and things in his forty-eight years on this planet.

Like the time someone asked him, 'What's it like to be so tall?'

Bru complained about the difficulty of getting shoes, pants, things like that to fit. As a teenager, he was brutally shy and awkward. That pea-brain, the brain of a fourteen-year old kid, in a body more suited to a man. Chuck was six-feet tall one year, and six-foot-four the next.

Like an Imperial Walker from the original 'Star Wars' movie, that brain, in a body that was all new. Teens are the most self-conscious people in the world. But then, they're not used to being 'all grown up.' He was the tallest guy on the basketball team, and the most uncoordinated.

'A lot of men would love to be seven effing feet tall!'

There was a hint of jealousy in the retort.

"Yes; but with an eleven-inch neck?" was all he said.

And of course his feet, which were all of size fourteen, plus a bit more. Yes, a little something extra. Having grown four inches the year he turned fifteen, he was totally uncoordinated. He was lousy at high school sports. The first time in the locker room, when he took off his shoes and socks, and unveiled those feet, with six toes on each one, that was an interesting experience.

Yep. That was the day he earned his lifelong nickname, 'The Mutant.'

Chapter Thirteen

...at the Band Council meeting...

"This is alarming," the words were baldly stated.

Stocky Washington George sat impassively, waiting for a response from the other band council members. Predictably, it was Roberta Wright who spoke first.

"That's exactly how I would characterize it," she agreed, in the cool monotone she affected at meetings.

University educated, he always felt she was laughing at him behind a mask of civility.

There was no question she wanted his job someday. Frankly, he couldn't think of a better successor. That wasn't up to him; and he would never tell her such a thing. Let her enjoy the hot-seat of 'power,' reconciling impossibly contradictory demands from all quarters. And there were never enough resources to accomplish even the half of it.

She might get used to none of the credit and all of the responsibility, and sometimes much of the blame.

"This report says eighty percent of the emissions are considered toxic," said Sammy James. "The sixteen and a half million tonnes of greenhouse gases are almost an afterthought."

All the councilors sat there troubled, silent and reflective. The Nassagewaya reserve was surrounded on all four sides. Across the St. Irene River American industries were contributing their fair share. Directly across the river, the Quebec-based Agro-Nation Polymers Group released a high amount of toluene on a yearly basis from their facility in Port Nugent, Michigan.

"We can hope that these results will act as a catalyst, on all the levels of government," said Wright. "How they can continue to ignore this stuff?"

"There is a mountain of circumstantial evidence," pointed out Cleve Walks-in-the-Shadows.

Cleve was a slender middle-aged man, with glasses and a moustache.

A former member of the Canadian Forces, he always held himself with great dignity. Twenty years in bomb disposal had given him a steady nerve and some personal reserve. A hard man to get to know, but once he let you in...he was the best friend. The very best.

"Toxic exposure has resulted in a variety of health issues in this community," Washington noted for the group. "These include miscarriages, cancer and asthma, to name a few."

His own diabetes was the result of the huge environmental changes his people had faced in the last five hundred years.

"Heavy metals and pesticides in the environment do affect the brain," and he took a long, deep breath, looking around at all of them.

"Oddly enough, we're not alone. There's this Brubaker character who's in the paper all the time," he pointed out. "And there are other leaders. The media have been pretty active."

"Sixteen percent of all the emissions in the province; in a province of over thirteen million people, and a county and city combined of maybe a hundred and twenty-five thousand people."

He thought for a moment.

"It's hard to believe all that filth and toxicity aren't causing some harm," Washington concluded.

"It would require quite a stretch of the imagination," agreed Roberta wryly.

The chief saw that a small group of individuals lobbying for a grant to set up a drop-in center were ready to go now. The center would counsel substance abuse victims and survivors of other forms of abuse. Sometimes his heart just ached. Too little, too late. But it was best to stay positive. He had conquered his anger many years ago, and knew he was a better person for it. It was the grief that wouldn't go away.

"Will you give me a resolution for the next meeting?" George's eyes sought out Roberta's.

"Yes," she told him.

Cleve and the others indicated approval.

He nodded thanks. She would come up with something fairly diplomatic, yet condemn the government's inaction on the pollution issue.

"All set then?" he asked the chairman of the community centre committee.

Receiving a nod, he moved, "Next item on the agenda..."

Chapter Fourteen

Professor missing...

Professor Geoff Pakenham has been missing for several months. Authorities are asking for the public's cooperation. He was last seen walking down County Road 17 on Easter Sunday, at approximately 6:30 a.m. Police say the professor may have gone on a walkabout, for which the popular, yet eccentric teacher of journalism at Lennox College of Applied Arts and Technology was noted. Instructor in such topics as Media and the Law; Writing for the News, and Political Science, Mr. Pakenham was fond of walking tours in such places as Kenya, New Zealand and Mongolia since his wife passed on eight years ago. While foul play cannot be ruled out, police speculate that the professor wandered off the beaten path, perhaps suffering a stroke or heart attack. He may have broken a leg in a remote location and perished from exposure.

Landowners in the vicinity of Aronka, Schmedleyville, and along County Road 17 are being asked to check woodlots, ditches and secluded areas of their land. They should call police if they notice anything unusual. While the weather was quite warm at the time of the disappearance, there were a couple of cold snaps before spring arrived. The professor is in his mid-sixties, balding, with a toothbrush mustache and an English accent. He was last seen wearing a white hooded parka, hiking boots and blue jeans. He habitually wore a cap, what the locals call, 'a chirper.'

There have been three other missing persons locally in the last two and a half years, according to Inspector Randall Gowan of Lennox Police Services. These include known loner and outdoorsman Harold Hilier; Norma Rice, a patient who wandered away from a private nursing home in Pistrolia; and Josh Hartley, age 14; the only disappearance police consider 'suspicious.'—Mackenzie Schwartz

"That fuckin' Gowan!" grunted Brubaker.

His buddy, Slippery McCougall, claimed to have bribed him with $2,200 bucks one time to make some charges go away. In some ways Gowan was just trying to do the right thing.

McCougall did four years in jail for an attempted robbery, (and a previous history.) He got out, and tried to go straight. He got a job at an electrical contracting firm, and started saving up his money. He tried to stop ripping off wallets and stealing credit cards and running them up.

"You were right. Better off to be poor but free," he told Bru one day.

Bru didn't half believe it.

The only problem was some outstanding charges that had never been taken care of in a court of law. McCougall wanted to buy a house. Brubaker showed up one day at 'Slip-Sliding-Away' McCougall's place, and Slip met him at the door with the phone in his hand. Bru heard one side of a conversation with Slip's lawyer. The gist of it was; the charges went away. Slip bought his house and started tearing it apart, with big plans for renovation. Yeah; and one day he flipped out on someone at work. Slip threatened to smash his head in with a steel pipe or something. Got fired. And Slip being Slip; he came up with the idea of the grow-op.

At some point Bru knew he had to walk away from his old buddy.

"Why are you so paranoid?" Slip asked Chuck, laughing with derision. "What are you afraid of? You're not involved. The cops won't do nothing to you."

"That's bullshit," said Chuck.

"What will they do to you?" asked Slip with a grin.

"They'll say I ratted you off," said Bru with some heat. "You'll be sitting in a fuckin' jail cell, with too much fuckin' time to think."

Last time around; Slip was warned by the judge, 'Next time it'll be five years.'

In the end McCougall just didn't get it. The cops were essentially just as bad as the criminals. To get in their way was fraught with peril. Upon reflection, Bru pegged his buddy as a big threat to his friends, not being able to take responsibility for his own mistakes. Looking back, Slip had never been caught doing anything. He always blamed someone else, it didn't much matter who; for 'ratting him off.' Bru feared Slip more than he feared the cops, but that wasn't it.

He just walked away on general principles.

For fuck's sakes!

You could buy all the pot you wanted for a hundred bucks and let some other asshole take all the risks.

McCougall just didn't get it.

Like a lot of losers, maybe he just needed a hobby. Or maybe he honestly believed that you could live on the proceeds of petty crime indefinitely.

Bru could at least reckon up the odds. And over time, the margin got narrower and narrower.

***

His dad was reading the paper, and then he looked up.

"That professor. You knew him?"

"Fuck. He was a nice old guy. A real good teacher, too. Last time I called him, he just seemed so shaky on the phone. I don't know. Maybe a touch of emphysema."

Chuck was saddened by the loss. He'd known Pakenham since1988, the first time he returned to school. When Bru ran out of money after five months of school, Pakenham made some calls and got him an interview. That interview led to another, which led to a job as sports editor of a weekly paper in New Bangor, Ontario. Bru subsequently screwed the job up pretty badly. That wasn't Pakenham's fault, was it? More a case of too many girlfriends in too many towns. Bru learned much from these experiences. For one thing, you couldn't be everywhere at once. For another; girls have a really good sense of smell, with minds more logical than some would credit.

Bru composed his thoughts.

"Pakenham skewered me real good one day," he told the elder Brubaker.

"He told me to go interview some guy. For the sake of argument, let's call him Tony Fuck-head," he began the story in a reminiscent tone. "The guy worked there at the college. I forget which department. Anyhow, I went down the hallway. It was like three doors down. As I walked in; there were three offices in a row, all glass-fronted cubicles. On the wall was a plaque beside each guy's door; and I could see this guy in there on the phone. The plaque said, 'Tony Fuck-head.' I went in and interviewed the guy, and the story appeared in the college paper. Later that week..."

Bru had never been sure, not positively, but...

"So what happened?" asked Frank Brubaker.

"Pakenham told me there was a phone call. Some guy, Mr. Fuck-head, wanted to talk to me. Anyhow; he thanked me for the story, said it was a good story, and he agreed with everything in it. Only trouble was, he didn't know me from Adam; and didn't remember saying any of it."

His father laughed out loud.

"You were set up!"

Bru nodded glumly.

"I'll never know for sure, but it really did hurt at the time."

"Will the real Tony Fuck-head, please stand up," sang his dad in a passable imitation of Eminem. "Please stand up."

"And what lesson did you learn from all this?" Big Frank asked.

"Not to make assumptions," allowed Chuck seriously. "That one bit me in the ass."

His dad was a little taken aback by his next assertion.

"I loved that old guy. I owe him a lot. He used to tell us, 'check your sources,' in that dry, dusty English accent. That Hilier guy, he went missing near Aronka. But everyone who knew him said he was into the survival thing. He may not actually be missing."

They sat and sipped coffee for a time. Then his old man started up again.

"I had an awful dream last night," he said.

"What was it this time?" muttered Bru with a grimace.

"I dreamed I plugged up the toilet, and then, when I went to use the plunger, it wouldn't go down."

Frank Brubaker was pretty famous for jamming up the toilet with hard stools.

Bru winced as the story went on.

"So I was plunging and flushing and plunging and flushing. Then the toilet sucked the head off the plunger. I was wondering, oh God; what am I supposed to do now? How am I going to get that out of there? I had visions of calling a plumber and having him rip out the walls, the floor, all the pipes..."

Chuck grinned. Psychologically it was rife. It was the dream of a man who dreaded spending money. Like many of the working class, his greatest nightmare was debt, which of course involved paying bills. Hence the anal retentive streak when it came to money, and dreams.

In a nutshell, the dream wasn't about poop, but about money.

***

Chuck went and unlocked the garage and his bike. He filled up the water bottle, and then strapped on his pouch. Frank Brubaker was puttering about with paint brushes and a soup can with a little gasoline in it.

"Be careful with that," Bru admonished the old guy.

Sometimes the old man pissed him off. One of the leading causes of death in elderly people is by silly accidents. Strapping on his helmet, he was ready for a ride. The day was bright and sunny. The morning air was soft, with a touch of fog, but it would burn off quickly. He put a couple of smokes in the drawer of the desk in the garage, where a spare lighter was kept. Brubaker checked to make sure he had his bank-book.

"I shall return," he said.

"Good for you, MacArthur," said pops.

...details of Scow's site cleanup plan...

Details of Scow Canada's decommissioning of the Lennox site will be outlined at city hall by the program leaders tomorrow. Spokesperson Catherine Creeper and Don Phybes, Scow site director; will speak publically about the company's intentions for the Chemical Alley properties it owns and operates. A latex operation will be shut down this month and only propylene oxide units will operate until April 2011. The chlor-alkali unit was shut down six months ago but site cleanup continues.

A year ago, Scow officials announced the decision to close the Lennox facility, ending the company's seven-decade history in Lennox.

"Aside from concerns about the work force, the city is anxious to hear about Scow's plan to clean up this site," according to Mayor Hope Pedlar.

"Scow has a good record of remediation. We're working with them to determine what the land can be used for once it's totally cleared," she said. "It's going to take a long time. Once we're at the end of the journey, to get the property to where it should be, we are at the nexus of solar energy, and the centre of ethanol development in Ontario."

The city had absolutely no solar energy. A simple fact, of which she appeared to be unaware, although some preliminary work was being done on a solar farm; noted Brubaker in disbelief. The Mayor had just objected to wind turbines, saying it would 'spoil the view.'

Pedlar is optimistic new uses for the Scow property will be found once the clean-up is complete. By 2011 the company will have no employees on the site, according to data provided. Two landfill sites will be shut down. They will be subject to third-party monitoring. Outlying properties are also being readied for sale by Scow. Once site decommissioning is complete; no structures will remain and trees and grass will be planted. At the time the closure was announced, Scow had 470 employees in Lennox. That number is now 275. The majority of workers are eligible for retirement, according to a chart to be formally presented to council at tomorrow's meeting. Approximately one-eighth of the Scow workforce has been, 'redeployed,' and, 'other segments' are still seeking jobs, require re-training or haven't been, 'released.'

Contenders for the one million dollars for charity Scow is pledging as a parting gift to the city have been reduced to a list of five finalists. Company officials plan to announce the decision before Christmas. A committee of employees, management and private community groups is being consulted in this process.—Staff writers.

"My name is not on that list, presumably," muttered Brubaker, flipping through last night's paper. "I'll bet it goes to the Mayor's Monolithic Monument."

He sat on a bench by the waterfront, waiting for the bank to open. There were times when he simply couldn't wait to leave the house. He found himself identifying pretty strongly with street people. They were becoming more and more common, even in this high-average-median-income according to Statistics Canada town. Intuitively Chuck understood, that to sit cooped up in a moldering old flophouse-slash-firetrap was something they couldn't abide.

To sleep in a dorm was no substitute for freedom.

Fresh air, and peace and quiet. No snoring. No stinky socks inches from your face, no one trying to bum your second last smoke or borrow your toothbrush.

Brubaker was always fascinated by the editorial page. The letters to the editor cut across class boundaries, intellectual capacities, and went from the sublime to the absurd in pretty short order. One guy might write one letter a month on abortion, quoting the Bible at every turn. Some people wrote in to thank the hospital or the doctors for something.

Some other guy wrote in and gave the government a blast of shit.

Chapter Fifteen

Cheque day at the branch...

Brubaker looked at the thirty-buck watch his dad gave him a few years ago. The bank should be opening the doors any minute now. He stuffed the damp paper back into a garbage bin and got on the bike to go up the hill to his branch. Stepping out of the door this morning, the first thing to assail him was a smell like burning electrical components. He checked the cars, then inside and behind the garage. He couldn't locate the source. It must obviously be somewhere upwind, but other than that, who knew? Finally giving up, he mounted the bike and headed uptown.

After a short time, one forgot about it, or got used to it.

Standing in the lineup, in front of him were individuals he recognized from countless end of the month cheque-cashing trips. At the head of the line, there stood a mentally-retarded man. Next it was the guy with no upper lip. Or maybe it was more like an unusually long nose. It came down the upper lip about a half inch more than was normal. Then it was the blind guy; along with his adult son. This individual was a slight bearded man, brown hair falling over his eyes. The son was as much a dependent as a caregiver. The younger man remained outside of the silken ropes of the actual lineup; but came up to proffer his dad a cup of coffee from the courtesy urn by the window.

One guy at the counter was paying every bill he ever had in his life.

All just routine, for Brubaker.

Nothing surprised him. When another customer came in the door, and said, 'Hi, Davy,' to the retarded man at the head of the line, it was really a kind of déjà vu.

"I've been here before..."

Charles felt like a fly stuck in Vaseline, sometimes.

Yes, I've been here before. Many, many times.

A voice in his head said; "Fight for them."

Fight for them, Brubaker.

It was an interminable wait. He studied everything that came into his sight; for Brubaker had a curious streak in him; and loved his fellow man more than he let on sometimes. Finally, he got his turn.

The teller, a girl named Mindy, was sniffling as she put away the papers from the previous transaction. She closed the drawer, the same drawer she would open again in thirty seconds or so.

"Do you suffer from hay fever?" he asked rather diffidently, as he was pretty shy around young women.

She always had a rock on her finger the size of a pea; and she had really big bazoombas. Big, beautiful bazoombas. They were not droopy or saggy, but perky, and upright. They were cone-shaped, like rocket nose-cones. Big Frank, who also banked here, had noticed them as well. Brubaker told his dad they were implants.

'They're the new helium implants, that's why they stand up like so,' he said, jamming two fists up inside his T-shirt.

Moving them around like closed circuit cameras and going, 'booop-booop-boop...'

Perish the thought.

Let the lady have her dignity. And you have yours as well...came that voice in his head again.

"No," she said in some disarray, putting the Kleenex into a waste-basket. "I don't know what's going on. My whole family is going nuts."

"It feels itchy...scratchy...tickly..." she said; updating his bankbook.

He withdrew fifty bucks and then withdrew to the outside world, still thinking about them tits...

('Boo-boo-boo-boop...' and he imagined the bristling radar nose cones follow him out.)

Every Thursday since time immemorial...

Every Thursday since time immemorial, journalists from the local media gathered at what they called, 'the Hot L.' That's because the letter 'e' in the neon sign was burnt out on the Lennox Hotel, and it never got replaced. Thursdays, it was the roast beef special. They alternated between Schmedleyville and Lennox. Every second Thursday; it was either the roast beef; or a good old standby like the toasted clubhouse or a western sandwich.

Some of them, the ones from Titusville or Oil Wells, complained about the drive.

They didn't have to come. They were also in the minority, and couldn't deny there were no good specials in their necks of the proverbial woods. Barnes was into his third beer, uncharacteristically for him. He belched, enjoying the flavour of cole-slaw a second, or was it the third time around?

"This frickin' Brubaker has scooped us; by his own lights, a time or two. Deep in the turgid, diseased recesses of his pathetic little diseased mind," he was telling them.

Glances were exchanged all around.

"Editors in the smaller markets tend to be cautious and conservative types," grumbled Barnes.

The others listened with eyebrows raised.

"Brubaker!" he grunted in derision. "Well, what does he expect?"

The question hung in the air. Barnes went on.

"It's bad enough he sends these insane letters. There was this one time, he said he went to the beer store and asked for, 'six Ex.' The guy behind the counter said, 'Ooh, hoo, hoo-hoo.'"

Fred made his wrist go limp when he said it.

Someone at the end of the table sounded it out: "Sick...sex...?"

Barnes nodded.

"'So now I have to find a new beer store,' and crazy shit like that," noted Fred as all the reporters chuckled.

This included the crew from CIBS. FM guys, (no one could ever remember their names,) people from outlying local weeklies, and the stringer from the TV network(s) who eked out a living shooting cutaways and tying to scoop Jan Eakes on caulking and stuff.

They all laughed.

The stringer was big on triple-pane windows and proper drainage. His biggest thrill in life was to video-tape strikers on a picket line.

"He told me once, 'you could be holding snakes and speaking in tongues for all I care, I know I'm right...' what a son of a bitch," stated Barnes through tightly-clenched teeth.

"One time he told me, 'a short, fat, pudgy-faced, baldy-headed, four-eyed, buck-toothed son of a bitch like you should have more confidence,'" quoted O'Keefe with a pained smile. "You have to admit, he's pretty good!"

"You just have to shake your head sometimes," allowed Ryebaum.

"Now this police budget. The man's been smashing away at us for a couple of years now. Why not call the Mayor? Why not call a councilor?"

Barnes was peeved, they could all see that.

"It will all be in tonight's paper, and we'll get a blast of shit from him tomorrow," confirmed O'Keefe.

"Why do you guys hate him so much?" asked one of the FM guys, the crew-cut, bleach-blonde type in some kind of Donald-Duck voice.

Apparently he was the one with all the allegedly funny voices. Which might be fine for radio; in real life, day-to-day situations, it just made him look like an idiot.

"I wouldn't say I hate him, exactly. This one time he wrote about gun control..."

Barnes sat back, contemplating a beer rapidly nearing the empty mark.

O'Keefe, more used to concise reporting, not just editing, picked up the story.

"He was in favour of gun registration. Figures it's a tool for solving crimes, right?"

He picked at some cold French fries.

"Well, every responsible gun owner with a computer or a typewriter wanted a piece of him. We published a few of their letters. All of a sudden Brubaker comes back; all off the record of course, 'I can't believe you guys published their correct names and towns...'"

"Oh, shit," someone said.

"Uh, oh,' acknowledged O'Keefe.

Barnes sat up.

"That's exactly right! Less than two weeks later, somebody broke into a house, the home of one of our contributors; and stole ah, three or four long guns..."

"And this Brubaker?" queried Neal Robertson, from the Lennox This Week flyer, a mailbox stuffer, a 'newsmagazine.'

Neal was a new guy. He'd only been in town a couple of months since the sale and purchase of the company by a Finnish consortium.

"So he's like a criminal type? How bold," said Neal, but Barnes was shaking his head vehemently.

"No! You don't get it. He thinks he's a fuckin' writer!" said Barnes, and they all grinned.

"Just an asshole," concluded O'Keefe. "Still, he thinks he's pretty smart. How smart do you have to be to read a letter to the editor and then pick up a phone book? No smarter than a thief."

"That was the one where the thieves stole a lock box. They ripped it right out of the wall with the guns still in it. They put it on a dolly and were last seen going down the street two or three blocks away," Ryebaum clarified for the edification of the TV and FM-radio characters.

Since the radio only carried five minutes of news a day, he figured they probably didn't know.

"I remember that," someone at the end of the table mentioned. "In broad daylight."

They had three or four tables pushed together for the weekly media get-together, a little tradition. No one could remember who originally started it, but it was sacred. You might miss one once in a while, but sooner or later you had to come back. The tradition went on, even though the membership changed. Ryebaum missed three weeks in a row once; and all of a sudden some chick he didn't even remember called him up and asked if he was coming out next Thursday! He still didn't know who she was, eyeing the faces up and down the table.

Ryebaum knew he was bad with names.

He figured that's why they wrote 'em down.

That's why we have notebooks, in his opinion.

"Still, one gets tired of his snarky attitude," noted Robertson, who had also gotten a few letters over the last couple of months.

Now that he thought about it.

"Snarky? Hah! He likes you then," quipped Schwartzie.

The whole gang broke up in laughs again.

A few beers helped.

Chapter Sixteen

Police budget shoots up nineteen percent...

by Bruce Lipshitz

Lennox ratepayers face a nineteen percent hike in policing costs after a $37.3 million budget was approved Friday by the Lennox Police Services Board. But that's not all, a deficit of almost $2,450,000 from last year will also be tossed into council's lap. Board member David Flushing renewed his call for further attempts by police to review the budget and cut spending.

"We should take another look so we can say it's the best we can do," said Flushing, who questioned a list of increases of over 10 percent. "This is insanity."

Board member Ronald Polk said he took part in review sessions that resulted in, 'well over $23,000 in cuts,' from projected spending.

"It was carefully reviewed," he said.

According to Mayor and chairperson of the Board Hope Pedlar, "The spending increase and deficit will be offset by lower spending in other departments and shouldn't be seen as a benchmark."

Cuts made included $4,000 from officers' $22.8 million budget, which includes salaries, car allowances, training and equipment. Chief Will O'Shaughnessey said 8.7 percent of the increase relates to salary increases contained in negotiated contracts. Salaries for Lennox's 110 officers, including projected overtime, will be $25.7 million in 2008, a 10 percent increase from 2007. Salaries for the full-and-part-time civilian employees, including projected overtime, will increase about eight percent to $8.88 million. Overtime has been a contributing factor to the current year's projected deficit. It's $300,000 more than the 2008 estimate of about $650,000. Major crime investigations were one source of overtime.

"In the case of an unexplained death, officers were required to protect the scene for about a week," the chief said.

Deputy Chief Ralph Dingleberry noted that seven or eight front-line officers have also been sidelined by illness or injury, boosting the overtime figure.

An $180,000 study of staffing requirements survived the budget axe. New cruisers will be purchased in the coming year.

Board member Sean MacNulty asked, "Do we need a study to tell us we need to hire more officers when we already know that?"

Mayor Hope Pedlar said she would be 'stunned,' if the study didn't recommend hiring more staff. The study will also examine the possibility of finding more efficient ways to use staff. The cost represents about the total yearly cost of a trainee officer.

"The study should proceed because the findings would have more credibility than an in-house report when presented to city council," said Dingleberry.

Other services' in-house reports were dismissed as 'self serving,' he added. He also stated that hiring additional officers doesn't necessarily bring a matching decrease in the number of overtime hours due to varying time and scheduling demands. The budget goes to city staff by the end of the month; and will be incorporated into the city's draft budget which will be presented to council on Dec 4 and 5.

That was quite the fire last night...

"That was quite the fire last night," Big Frank told his son as he sat at the kitchen table with the overhead chandelier turned up full blast.

There were no longer any decorative globes for the wagon-wheel chandelier, and Big Frank used ordinary, frosted white bulbs in it. He'd recently had his eyes done by Doctor Burkhard. While he no longer needed glasses for long distance; or night driving; the better the light, the less fatiguing it was to read.

"Yeah, that was quite the thing; the third one this year. That Noble guy got some good pictures."

Apparently he was working late when she blew, noted Brubaker.

"I'll read it later. So anyway, I went out to Whale-Mart this morning," he began. "I bought forty pounds of weight, a bar and a ten-pound dumb-bell."

"Uh, huh," said his dad.

"I'll work out with them over the winter," said Bru. "Nibbles and I can work out in the garage, although I doubt if poor old Mush-head will get involved."

Mush-head lived with three steel pins in his hip. Last time he visited, Mush met him at the door on crutches. Mush was real crazy on a motorcycle, although semi-retired now.

"Uh, huh," said Pops, intent on the paper, which quite frankly Brubaker had asked him to cancel numerous times.

But his old man always said, "I don't mind it."

"How much did that cost?" asked Frank Brubaker.

So he was paying attention.

"About seventy-three bucks," said Bru. "What the hell. I'm worth it."

"If Russia attacked Turkey from the rear, would Greece help?" his old man mused.

"What the heck are you reading?" asked Bru.

Current events, while interesting, often seemed very far away and somehow irrelevant.

His problems were much closer to home. Brubaker had his own challenges. Let world leaders fuck the place up in their own inimitable way.

***

Dear Fred;

I have never heard of one innocent person, who got caught up in the courts and walked away unscathed, unhurt, or undamaged in some way. A lot of people just can't defend themselves.

You guys find that hard to understand.

Maybe you never make a mistake.

For myself, three days in jail awaiting a bail hearing, was a very traumatic experience.

I will never look at them fucking cocksuckers the same way again. The truth is, they can do any damned thing they want to you. If you never have to acknowledge the truth of that assertion, consider yourselves blessed.

I never caused problems for my neighbour on Sigourney St. I think I was a problem, I think I symbolized something to the poor guy.

I symbolized everything that was wrong with the world—his world.

The gentleman had a wife and three kids. He was self-employed. He started off in high school, and when other kids had no money, he had cash. When he graduated, he kept on. When his friends weren't working, he had money. He married his high school sweetheart. Bought a house. Some years later; when all his buddies were cops, firemen, or working at the plants for $90,000 a year, he was still cutting lawns. He had no benefits. He could never get pogy in the winter. I mean, it's tough.

And then, 'that fucking Brubaker,' moved in next door.

I am nothing if not visible.

He read my stories in the paper. He saw some potential. And he was jealous. The poor guy never had a chance, did he? His cousin died young. His old man fought, 'a long and courageous battle against cancer...' and he had to watch...

At some point they must have speculated about me.

It's pretty easy to appear 'a deadbeat,' in the eyes of a man like Mr. LaSally. But then he works very hard to make a living, doesn't he? And he loves his wife and kids. No doubt about that; least of all in my mind. I had time to observe the gentleman, you understand.

Someday you will do me the honor of telling me why I did not, could not, retaliate in any meaningful way against that gentlemen, why I could not defend myself?

— Chuck

"This guy's developing a real Jesus complex now," groaned Barnes, crumpling up the rather depressing missive and giving it a toss in the general direction of the garbage bin, always heaped up over the rim.

"How the hell do I shake this guy off my back? What is his problem?" he fumed.

***

Brubaker at that exact moment was on the phone to his Aunt Isabel.

"How do you keep it from getting too personal?" he asked. "Because I want to change my attitude and that is the toughest thing."

"It's not always easy. But it's worth doing," she advised.

They always had a pretty good relationship, even when her and ma were feuding.

She never tried to drag him into the middle of it.

"I'm afraid of going into the ODSP, losing it, and getting into a screaming match with someone. I hate it when the cops come around, you know?" he said.

Theoretically, Bru had needed glasses for a long time. He didn't want to ask for them.

"I've lost my temper once in a while. I've been a thorn in the side of certain agencies. They have a crappy job," she advised. "Fight for others, if you can't fight for yourself."

He listened intently, this being better than talking. It was so hard to express how he felt sometimes. He just knew when he felt bad.

"Get some perspective," Aunt Isabel told him. "You have to blow off some steam once in a while. You can't go in with a seventeen-item list, stick to two or three. Concentrate on what you need to happen."

Don't try to pick apart the system.

"If you want to incriminate the system, all you have to do is sit around for ten minutes. Something shitty will happen. Why not focus on the goal?"

"You can't get political change at the front desk of the ODSP any more than you can get your cheque from someone like Mrs. Achmed-O'Malley," she pointed out, reasonably enough.

Lobby as a group.

"Governments count the numbers," she said.

"I'm just taking baby steps right now," put in Bru.

She explained several ways to get information.

"I do a lot of fishing," she said.

When enlightenment comes, it hits with a bang.

"We are all incompetent," she said. "Make a list of questions before you go in, and don't get sidetracked. We now have a new dual diagnosis nurse. What that means, a person has a developmental disability in the cognitive sense, and a medical problem; or a physical disability, injury, or mental illness. Seriously; how do you get a developmentally disabled person with a broken leg into the dentist's office, or a quadriplegic suffering from depression to talk to a shrink? How do you get a paranoid person to go in for an MRI?"

She paused for breath.

"A quadriplegic suffering from depression. What do you say to the guy?" wondered Bru. "Tomorrow's going to be a better day?"

"Of course everyone needs more money to live." she added with an air of finality.

She was shocked to learn Ontario Works was slashed 35% in 1995 and when inflation was taken into account, they were living on less than half of what they were then.

"So the other day, that Deepak Chopra guy was on TV. He wrote like forty freakin' books," Bru said. "According to him, organized religion is about power, money, control and influence. He said, I think this was on CBC, 'righteousness is jealousy with a halo.'"

Brubaker was wondering if that precept might apply to him.

"He said, 'I don't exist, and where there is no anger, there is no fear,'" Bru related.

"'When you die, you return to the earth, and the spirit becomes like tiny electrons dissipating in the matter, or words to that effect.'"

"So it doesn't hurt, or anything?" his aunt asked mischievously.

"My theory is that it's all just a drop in the cosmic bucket. So I can see where he's coming from, you know? I call it my, 'Cosmic Bucket Theory.'"

"Was he the one that said, 'the crime is its own punishment?'" she asked.

"No, that was on the 'A' channel." Bru told her.

"How many television sets do you have?" she chuckled.

Bru was simply channel-surfing.

"So how are Uncle Dave and Billy?" Bru remembered to ask.

He couldn't be all business all the time. He was surprised to hear Uncle Dave was now retired! Holy!

"Oh, yes. I guess it's been a while since we talked last. He shut the plant down a couple of times and they offered him early retirement," she said, a little pensively. "Still, he's been thinking about it for some time, and they made him a pretty decent offer."

"Oh, really!" said Bru.

That's fucking smart, Uncle Dave, but he didn't say it.

"He was the operator in charge and he didn't want to be responsible for a spill or a fire," she told Brubaker.

"Holy fuck!" he said a little indelicately.

His aunt was a nice lady after all.

"It's just that they're always cutting back on manpower and labour. They're not spending a dime on maintenance, and that's not good with all those valves and pressure fittings, eh?"

She continued with the tale, hair-raising in its stark simplicity. More especially so; as the Canadian energy industry had earned ten billion in profits the previous year, Bru recalled.

That didn't even include petrochemicals.

"He got sick of the overtime. Everyone's going about like a zombie, half the time..."

Apparently it was cheaper to pay overtime than to hire new people. If they rocked the boat; they got no more overtime. It was a non-union plant.

Chuck was impressed, not for the first time, by his Aunt Isabel. Her network beat anything he had ever heard of, except for the real pros. Maybe all those years of fighting for his cousin Billy, who had Down's; made her something of a pro in her own right. They talked for about forty-five minutes, and in the end, Bru just couldn't remember everything she said.

"I love you; Aunt Isabel," he told her. "Say hello to the guys for me."

They rang off.

He suddenly realized something else, too.

Governments are not that good at telling us how much they love us...right?

***

Yes, the interview with Deepak Chopra was very interesting.

Bru didn't get a whole hell of a lot of intellectual stimulation around here.

Mr. Chopra said, "Hindus can be killing and burning Moslems, and yet, they are vegetarians."

(Either Chopra was stupid or thought his audience was.)

Apparently his old man watched George W Bush's presidential inauguration.

Turned to the wifey-poo and said, 'Time to go now.'

Then, in the middle of his meditative trance, (or nap,) he passed away.

Now, that's a fine book that I'd like to read, reckoned Brubaker.

Chapter Seventeen

Major fire at Colonial Oil...

Alarms sounded last night at 3:35 a.m. at Colonial Oil as crews battled a major fire in the refinery. Units responded from Lennox and Schmedleyville. The blaze was not brought under control until about 8:30 a.m. No injuries were reported, but crews were still watering down hot spots and assessing damage as this edition went to press.

Damage assessment continues, but it is clear that the affected portion of the plant, which produces gasoline and diesel fuels, motor oils, and lubricants, will be shut down for an unknown length of time.

Company spokesman Guy LaDush said the refinery will be out of operation, 'for at least three months,' and this fire happened only three months after a major fire put a unit at the Nanticoke refinery out of service for an estimated six months.

That event sent pump prices skyrocketing across the eastern half of the country.

Company officials say they will be purchasing fuel from U.S. suppliers to meet demand and noted, "We are fortunate that reserves and inventories are relatively high."

'The fire couldn't have happened at a better time,' thought Brubaker.

Renewed calls for government intervention or a roll-back on fuel taxes have been met with polite disinterest. Guardian-Standard senior news editor Ken Noble was at his desk when he heard the call, and obtained extraordinary photos and first-hand impressions as police blocked off sections of Highway 47 and 47B, sections of Elizabeth, Clark Street and other points using emergency planning procedures. Officers were called in on overtime for the emergency. Fire units responded from all four city fire stations. Colonial Oil fire crews and fire teams from adjoining plants fought the blaze initially.

"This seasoned observer saw flames shooting five hundred feet in the air...the heat was intense...bright as daylight, you could drive while typing text messages by it...the noise of the flames was like the stereo in a drift car, or, or maybe a tornado...trucks, sirens, flashing lights...shouting men, hoses, foam, slipping and sliding, a lot of smoke, like a really good concert...black, greasy smoke that made you want to choke up...a Holocaust of money going up in flames...a veritable firestorm of burning automotive products...oh, the humanity..."

"Well, well," said Brubaker. "The plot thickens. And gas prices were already high enough."

Forgetting about the rest of the paper, he opened up a can of beer before it got too warm. Putting his feet up on the desk in the garage, he sipped at it. Then he pursed up his mouth, working his lips in and out, back and forth. Like sometimes when he tied to scratch the bottom of his nose with the stubble on his upper lip.

Like a channel cat with a nose for trouble, sniffing at some rather obvious bait, perhaps brushing his upper lip against the line.

Something was tugging at his subconscious. If he were to simply relax, perhaps it would come.

"Serenity is mine," he murmured.

Breathe in deeply, let it out slowly. Yes, the thought was there. Now let the words form in coherent order.

"Gotcha, motherfucker."

He had it. A paragraph in a book, one he got from the Bookmobile so very long ago.

Probably about grade five.

"A rum-besotten night watchman had an accident with his lantern, and the whole field went up, threatening the town of Oil Wells. The flames could be seen as far away as Croton, Pistrolia and Watertown. In the end, three men were killed battling the blaze. Not just the Wallace property; but four adjoining properties were completely destroyed. Prices shot up from $1.80 per barrel to $75 or more...the good times were back in Oil Wells, Pistrolia and other surrounding communities...men like Ben Wallace and Mike Farrow, one minute staring bankruptcy in the face, suddenly the next minute bought bigger lots and put up huge mansions in the towns of Pistrolia and Oil Wells..."

The year was about 1897.

Who gave him the rum? And the kerosene lantern?

Who hired him in the first place?

"Another thing. As long as the Nassagewaya, the city, the county, the province, the feds, and the industry all argue for different things; different sets of noble goals, that health study won't ever happen."

The federal government, who were on the hook for the cost; said they wanted, 'a consensus,' before funding it. They were totally cynical. It was a nice, easy way out. The lobbyists kept talking about 'air pollution,' and offering money for a study.

The funny thing was, air pollution seemed well-enough documented already.

So were the health problems. It was the link that was missing. Or links, plural.

"All other things being equal, the simplest explanation must be the truth. But how does that help? How the fuck would you ever prove it?"

No answer from the crucifix hanging on the wall.

"The Nassagewaya have nothing to lose by a health study. The city? The county? The industry? The feds? Oh, yeah."

Locally; it would result in a lot of bad press, making it difficult to 're-brand,' the city as a kind of 'Venice of the North,' a retirement haven for bourgeois, upper-income snowbirds who needed a Canadian pied-a-terre to retain their hospitalization benefits. If the story broke, local media outlets could hardly ignore it...could they?

Chuck tried to keep his own cynicism in check; to take it into account. What did industry have to lose but millions of dollars in liabilities? Arguably; they stood to lose billions of dollars in profits. An image from, 'Our Man Flint,' the James Coburn film, flashed through his mind.

"The phone company rules the world."

"There is nothing new under the sun," murmured Brubaker.

Unfortunately, he was oh, so wrong about that.

Chapter Eighteen

Human remains found near park...

Aronka OPP may have found the remains of a missing hiker. Children playing in a Conservation Authority property near this remote and rustic village in eastern Lennox County, reportedly discovered a human foot near the shoreline of the as-yet unspoiled Shashawanaga River.

Constable Bronson Nesbitt said police were notified by parents, and guided to the spot by 12-year old Nicky Crane. The remains have been sent to Toronto for DNA profiling and forensic examination. Police have contacted the next of kin of Harold Hilier, age 34.

Hilier went missing last autumn in the upper Shashawanaga valley. Police hope it will assist in identification of the remains. Hilier, a noted outdoorsman who studied wildlife biology at the University of Western Ontario, was scouting locations for a TV series when he became overdue. His wife called police when the weather closed in, and he didn't return cell phone and satellite walky-talky calls. His vehicle was recovered at that time. It was parked at Hungry Holler, about six kilometres from where the remains were discovered. The foot, which was described by police as being clad in a high-end sport sock and what appeared to be a sports/assault sandal, was 'about a nine and a half.' This corresponds to Hilier, according to family members.

Police wouldn't release further details. Information provided by other sources said the foot 'appeared to be severed cleanly at the ankle.'

Police would neither confirm nor deny that a murder investigation is underway, and say Hilier's disappearance may be explained, 'by other means, and not necessarily by foul play.'

There have been no bear sightings in the vicinity for, 'many years,' according to sources. Reportedly a black bear wandered into Benton ten years ago; about 300 kilometres from known bear habitat. There are no timber wolves in Lennox County, according to sources. Although there are coyotes, they aren't normally considered a threat to adult humans unless they are rabid. Packs of wild dogs can be dangerous, noted Nesbitt, but there have been no recent complaints from citizens.

"All we have to go on is the foot and information provided by the public," said Constable Nesbitt. — Staff Writers.

"That's up near the old Scout camp," the elder Brubaker said, as he sat at the kitchen table reading.

Chuck was washing dishes. They took turns. Every second night they either cooked or washed dishes. Bru's dad ate breakfast, lunch, and supper; and had a snack before bed, but Bru himself was only committed to one hot meal a day. When you skipped breakfast and lunch; you tended to look forward to that one.

Bru's big thing was cookies and milk when lying in bed reading a book at bedtime.

Give him that, and he didn't need much else.

"It's nice country up there," the old guy was saying.

"Peggy's Woods, I've been there. Diane was just hiking up there with the outdoors club last weekend," noted Bru for the old man's benefit. "There's nothing up there that's more dangerous than a rabid squirrel, or maybe a big fucking snapper. The river is nice, but a few yards back, at least on the east bank, there are ATV trails that you simply couldn't get lost on."

Frank appeared to be gearing up for one of his stories, and was clearing the throat.

"Farmers, trappers, hunters, fishermen, birders, dope growers. They all use that trail," Bru added. "Photographers, rock-hounds, whatever; Hilier found out about it somehow."

"Do you remember that store on the corner of County Road Seven and Highway Twenty-Three?" the elder man asked.

Bru put another dish in the rack.

"The little trading post where we used to get ice?" he asked.

It really didn't matter if he remembered. The old guy was going to go on with the story whether he cared or not.

"The first time I went up there, Eddie, the old Polack who owned the place; had a great big bear head up on the wall. I don't know if you remember seeing it?"

Bru interposed, "Nope."

The father-figure continued.

Bru couldn't have been born at the time.

"He said he shot it in The Pines about 1928. It was paradise back then, before they made it a provincial park. There were a few trails going back from the highway. Back then we used to walk over from the scout camp, swim the river, and then hike to the lakeshore. God! It was windswept. Not a single human footprint to be seen. We used to swim bare-ass and go running along the beach. You ever ran naked?" asked Frank Brubaker.

Chuck grinned at the mental image.

"Nope."

"Pretty funny to see a dozen Scouts chasing each other down the beach, buck naked," chuckled his pop.

"I guess you couldn't get away with that anymore, not these days," noted Chuck with a grimace.

"Hurts like hell," noted the old man with a grin. "Your pecker and your balls are slapping back and forth; swinging and banging from side to side."

"Ouch!"

And they were both laughing.

It was good to share a moment with the old man sometimes, and sometimes they got on each other's nerves. That's just the way life is.

"There must have been bears around here at one time," reasoned Bru. "There was some kind of woodland bison east of the Mississippi, and I don't know what-all. I saw my first beaver dam up there twenty or thirty years ago. I kept wondering, who would use an axe that low to the ground? They leave a kind of pointed stump. Finally it hit me; the beaver have come back to Lennox County. Once I drew that conclusion, I went looking for the dam."

Bru hadn't been too far from home in recent years; other than roofing with his brother all around southern Ontario. But there was a time when he roamed the county in various small cars of one sort or another. He took his 1987 Toyota Tercel, for example, miles off the road. That car was able to squeeze down footpaths; between trees, and along hard-packed beaches. It went where 4X4's couldn't. The thing with Bru was all that unlimited free time; especially when he had five bucks for gas, a half a roll of film, and a few smokes.

But that was then, and this is now.

Things were different now. Back then an abandoned rail cutting was an invitation to adventure.

Chapter Nineteen

Cougar warning...

Puckhill, Ont.—Citizens of this rural village are on the lookout for a cougar after a horse was mauled at a nearby farm.

"The horse was mauled by an animal with sharp claws. Since the attack, which left the horse torn up and bleeding badly, there has been at least one cougar sighting," according to Constable Doug Griffiths. "The horse has since been destroyed."

While the animal survived the attack; veterinary advice to the owners indicated the horse would not recover. Police issued a warning in response to the incident. They are asking people not to walk alone, at night, or in the bush, and to secure their barns. The attack on the horse hasn't been officially confirmed as a cougar attack.

"The injuries to the horse were consistent with the behaviour of a cougar hunting prey," said police.

"It was traumatic. The wounds were made by one animal as opposed to a pack. That wouldn't be consistent with wolves or coyotes. They hunt in packs."

Constable Griffiths said the risk to humans is low.

"Normally, we see the loss of family pets, cats and dogs. But this is the first attack on a horse," he said. "The Puckhill area has become almost legendary for cougar sightings."

Last summer a wildlife specialist with the Ministry of Natural Resources investigated 32 sightings in the London area, but found no hard evidence of a cougar. They did find proof of deer, coyotes, wild turkeys, raccoons, and possibly a bobcat.

"Cougars are also known as pumas," said Griffiths. "Or mountain lions, panthers, call them what you will. They roam remote areas all across the country, mostly in western Canada."

Their presence has been confirmed in New Brunswick, Quebec and in western provinces. Officials concede the animal, once thought to be extinct in eastern Canada, probably roams the remote northern regions of Ontario.— Staff Writers

***

"Man, oh, man, I'd love to see a cougar in the wild," Chuck told Big Frank. "So apparently Hilier was wearing water-proofed, insulated, lugged-sole assault clogs, like any candy-ass TV wildlife biologist should. Fuck. I guess it's better than that A-hole Croc Hunter, going barefoot in the thorn and snake-infested, burning deserts of Australia."

"What did Steve Irwin say when he got skewered by a stingray?" asked his old man.

"Crikey, the buggah's done me, keep rolling," soliloquized Bru.

His mimicry was precise, but he had been practicing for a couple of days now. Sooner or later it was bound to come up.

"The man engaged in high-risk behaviour patterns," his old man agreed in his best and most scientific manner.

A lab technician to the end.

Holy fuck, he was pretty lucid all of a sudden.

What gives?

"I'd love to get a picture of a cougar someday," muttered Bru with a funny look on his face.

Not getting any younger; there were a few things he wanted to do before he died.

That's the feeling he had lately. It wasn't exactly a 'life list.' It was so much more impulsive than that. It wasn't the proverbial, 'bucket list.'

His pop's eyebrows rose.

"Huh!" he said, but he seemed to accept it at face value, perhaps doubting the wisdom of going looking for one.

Chuck just grinned.

Brubaker went down to his room in the basement and looked at the big wall map hanging over his drawing table. While it was a road map, with little hydrographic or topographic detail, he knew his own backyard well enough. At the south end of Lake Kandechio, Lennox was lozenge-shaped with a triangular extension on the northeast corner. There was also a fan-shaped delta at the southwest corner where the St. Irene drained into Lake Goddawannapiss. In the sense of a microcosm of North America, the only things lacking were a set of glacial mountains like the Rockies, or perhaps a tidal seashore; or a desert. No tundra. Billiard-table flat for vast stretches, Lennox rose in the northeast into the dunes, and a few miles up the valley of the Shashawanaga, a few genuine hills, rolling into the horizon.

In this area, the Shashawanaga ran in a rocky gorge, 'Hungry Holler.' Its side creeks and tributary streams had revealed a number of waterfalls to his wandering eye and itchy young feet.

"I wonder if he went up by Two Falls?" he murmured. "I guess we'll never know."

It was on the correct side of the river. He could never figure out that, 'left bank, right bank,' stuff, which would seem to depend on which way you were looking at the time.

The river at Peggy's Woods was quite narrow. This was a conservation area separate and distinct from The Pines, a provincial park. Upstream, at Hungry Holler, it was shallow. You could jump across from rock slab to rock slab, composed of fossil-laden limestone. At the Rocky Glen, which was downstream about a kilometre and a half, you could wade it; at least in summer. When it got narrower, only a few metres wide in places; you couldn't find the bottom with your paddle, as he remembered.

And hot! One time he and Mush-Head brought a litre of juice, a can of pop and one canteen with a litre and half of water. Each.

They planned for a twenty-kilometre canoe trip downstream. The old two-vehicle trips, when you dropped a second car off downstream were the best. Otherwise you could paddle upstream for hours, and then when you'd had enough, drift back to the car in fifteen minutes. What they didn't plan on was the 48-degree Humidex reading on that hot and sunny August day.

The learning curve could be steep sometimes.

He never made the same mistake twice if he could help it, though.

With low water levels, they were forced to drag and push the boat through bottom-grinding rapids and shallows dotted with rocks. Sometimes you could push the boat with your paddles. Sometimes you literally had to get out and walk, pulling it on a rope.

"My problem is that I need an adventure," Bru figured. "No wife, no kids, no job, no home, no schedule, no responsibilities. No fucking complications. Why aren't I happier?"

He was fascinated by the map, and by the possibilities. He and Mush had canoed the river, and camped in the hills beside a waterfall a few times. He knew that country like the back of his hand. Puckhill was a few miles up Puckhill Creek, another tributary of the Shashawanaga. While it was just a theory, his best guess was that someone killed Hilier, and cut him up with an axe or chainsaw. It was either that, or death by natural causes.

Perhaps a slip or a fall; and maybe something fed on the carcass.

Without any knowledge of the man's personal life or circumstances, either seemed equally likely. On TV, the man wasn't totally uncoordinated. That, 'cleanly severed at the ankle,' was suggestive. Bru couldn't take his mind off of it. While he could be intuitive at times; it was never really clear-cut.

He just had a feeling. Maybe it was the fact that Professor Pakenham, a good friend, had disappeared as well. He just couldn't shake it off.

Bru's imagination was probably just working overtime. When he thought of Pop, sitting there hour after hour, day after day, watching the Cable News, with its litany of death and disaster, its obsession with terrorism, work-place and high school shootings; he guessed no one was immune from the paranoia. So far; all the police had was a foot, and maybe a big cat attack on a horse. Where was Hilier's campsite? There were only so many good spots. Where was his equipment? A notepad, or a set of binoculars? And where was the rest of the body? A big cat would have left the head, and probably the intestines. It would have left some big bones. It would have left the pelvis, shoulder blades, maybe a few vertebrae.

He picked up the phone and dialed a number with some trepidation. To borrow a canoe just wasn't that easy sometimes. If you weren't careful you might get a passenger.

They might invite themselves to go along, and you wanted to be careful who you ended up carting around. Just as many people change when they get behind the wheel; a change comes over some individuals when you got them out into the world and away from the eyes of their wives and mothers.

For some reason, their 'community standards,' weren't very portable.

Chapter Twenty

Brubaker was in the garage, working out...

Brubaker was in the garage, working out. He began with bench presses, laying on the steel bench with its padding and black leatherette cover. Feet flat on the floor, he pushed up, surprised by the speed and ease at which the bar, fifty pounds in all; went up.

He'd been at it a while. Bru did arm curls with the ten-pound dumb-bell, he did his leg lifts, then used the hand-squeezers. Each session it was a different sequence.

The day before; he only did twelve overhead lifts, but that was because he left them until the end of the session.

Overhead lifts with fifty pounds. He stood there with the bar at his waist, and cleared his mind. He did ten in about forty seconds or a minute, and rested. Bar at his waist, he let the weight stretch out those muscles. Then he managed ten more, after a very short rest at shoulder level. Then he managed to squeeze out another six.

A good day. By doing twelve different exercises every day, he figured to be in pretty good shape when spring rolled around.

He needed a new hobby. Bru had flown model airplanes, radio control, for about seventeen years. He simply got bored with it. After designing more than fifty planes, some big, some small, some duds and some real masterpieces; the fact was that you really couldn't compete with nine-year old Chinese kids making, 'almost ready to fly,' planes for less money. The government over there subsidized military aviation engineers to design some pretty good toys.

You just couldn't compete. It took hundreds of hours to build the things. That's why he was thinking about archery lately.

It was something different.

That's why he was taking a lot of photos with a hundred-dollar digital camera. He could at least afford to put the pictures on the hard drive. A quick calculation revealed to the inquisitive Bru, that he had saved a couple of thousand dollars—money he just didn't have—on developing and printing, film and battery costs.

With a digital camera, you could post pictures by going online. He tried it a couple of times at his mom's house. This was something he hadn't done before, and it was a new skill to learn. Brubaker had been on a kind of personal 'continuous improvement program,' for over twenty years. Not his fault if he wasn't getting nowhere.

All he really needed was a job, a girlfriend, and a home.

He didn't design a system gone mad, and he wasn't consulted in the makeup of a sick society. Digging out from a hole in the ground was tough. Climbing back up out of the gutter; dragging yourself up by the boot-socks; was a long and labourious process.

While most people who hit rock bottom seemed to find their way eventually, he despaired sometimes.

And yet he didn't know anyone who had a stronger will.

If he couldn't do it...who could?

Who could?

Chapter Twenty-One

Paddling up the Shashawanaga...

Paddling up the Shashawanaga, Brubaker saw that while the trees in the city were still about fifty percent green, out here the process was a couple of weeks further along. The colours were spectacular.

"This is where the canal ends," Brubaker told Nibbles. "If you go up the bank on the left, cross the road, and root around in the underbrush; you'll find what's left of the original channel."

Nibbles stared up, and off to the left in some doubt.

"The original channel is twenty feet higher," Brubaker explained. "Back in the 1880's they cut a by-pass, to drain what used to be called Schmidt Lake, and to alleviate flooding further downstream by Le Gran Binge. It's all vegetables now, cabbages and onions and stuff."

The floodplain was black soil, with clay and limestone hills to the south, and sand dunes to the north. Valuable real estate.

"Really?" Nibbles called back from the front of the boat.

They parked the van at the Highway 65 bridge just outside of Titusville; and were paddling upstream. When Nibbles looked back; it was surprising to see just how fast the road and bridge disappeared around the first curve of the river. The current was about three or four knots, according to Brubaker. Huge trees hung overhead.

"How do you know?" Nibbles asked.

"I lived just down the road for about a year and a half," Brubaker said. "My old man used to bring us up to the Scout camp. I cruised around here a lot in my MGB. The old man would take us to a place called Three Falls. That's on private property. I've wanted to buy that land since the first time I saw it. Hard to believe a ten-year-old can have such dreams."

It might still happen, Brubaker, came a surprisingly strong voice in his head.

"I'd like to see that," said Nibbles. "How far up is it? Can we make it?"

"Ten kilometres downstream," Brubaker replied. "We've got places to go today."

When they first got out of the vehicle, it was windy and cool, but the high banks of the river sheltered them. With the sun out, the 12-degree Celsius temperature was bearable. When necessary, they could button up again. Their collars were open. So far; gloves were unnecessary, although they both had them. Leaves of brilliant yellow, russet, apple red, brown, orange, purplish colours, floated upon the meandering river. All the weeds, and grasses, the bushes on the bank added to the blaze of colour. And sound, due to the breeze, and smell.

The smell of autumn was in the air.

"Listen," instructed Bru.

"...honk, honk...honk, honk..."

Craning his neck, Nibbles saw several V-shaped echelons of geese flying southward, straggling along high overhead.

"What do we do if we see that cougar?" asked Nibbles seriously.

He was up for a tour in the boat. As long as it wasn't too much work. As long as it was steady enough to roll a few doobs. As long as he could keep a few cans of Pepsi cool. As long as he had candy bars and a bag of chips. Bru did warn him, but he really didn't take it too seriously the night before, talking on the phone. But to see the river, to see how remote, and how wild it actually was. A kind of revelation.

"Total aggression might work. Just attack the thing yelling and screaming. The real problem is a surprise pounce from above. If you see it first, you're probably all right. But if it jumps on one of us from above, somebody is going to get hurt real bad. Probably even killed. Maybe even both of us," Chuck lectured his buddy.

Nibbles chewed on that for a while.

"Why is that?" Nibbles asked.

"If a cat attacks a deer, the rest of the herd just runs away," explained the other. "But a human being will defend its own kind."

Were humans just animals to Brubaker?

"That's why you brought me along! Your odds just got twice as good," Nibbles nodded ruefully and only half-jokingly.

"You don't have to be able to outrun a cougar," Brubaker retorted. "You just have to outrun your buddy!"

They were grinning like idiots. It felt good, for some reason.

"Heh-heh-heh," they both said at once.

A male-bonding moment, with shared risks, and sacrifice, (after all, they could be at home watching the Speed Network or something,) and unknown reward. The Goddess of Fortune might smile upon them.

"That's pretty unlikely, but if we stick together I'm sure the cat won't bother us," Bru told Nibbles. "See that big branch up there? Hanging out over the water?"

"Yeah. What about it?" asked his companion.

"Notice how the bark is all torn off there?"

"Yeah. What did that?"

"Ice," Bru said simply.

"Ice!" Nibbles' astonishment was evident. "Holy fuck! That must be forty feet up there!"

"I'd say that's about...twenty-seven and a half feet," his buddy joked.

"Okay," nodded Nibbles.

"We're at low water this time of year, and I don't know how far we'll get. I figure a big cat hunts mostly deer, rabbits, turkeys, stuff like that. The biggest part of its diet might be fuckin' mice! The odds of seeing him are awful small. But I'll check every place on the bank where there's a sandy patch, or a muddy bank where the deer come down," Bru explained. "Do me a favour, Nibbles? Let me paddle. Just sit there, and keep absolutely silent. Smoke 'em if you got 'em. Just keep your eyes open."

Nibbles stopped paddling, turned his head, and nodded. He put the paddle in the boat and began going through his bag for the binoculars. If Bru said so. Anyhow, Bru was half cat himself.

Nibbles marveled. Silently the prow of the boat rounded the turns. While the bow swung from side to side with each stroke, their general course was straight up the river. When they came to a sunken log, with branches sticking out and pointing downstream, Brubaker steered well clear, and powered up with a few firm strokes.

Brubaker never clunked the paddle against the side of the boat. Chuck rarely made a splash, although the sound of water dripping off the blade could occasionally be made out if you listened, really listened.

Nibbles looked back and saw they were actually leaving a wake, due to Brubaker's strong paddling and the strength of the current. Just like a speedboat, the little wavelets lapped at the shore in regular succession. Bru pulled her into the proximity of the bank, holding the boat with the point of his paddle tucked into the bottom of the river.

He looked over the gravel bar. Pale sand was under their keel, about ten or fifteen centimetres down. Nibbles saw that the canoe wasn't drawing much water. He realized that with a certain amount of silt in it, you couldn't see very deep. Sunlight slanted down through the trees, and he could hear the tops of them thrashing around. As more leaves came down on an oblique angle, freshets of soft, moist, autumn air caressed his face. If you studied the water carefully, you could see the shadows of rocks under the surface of the milky green water.

There was a smoky blue haze in the air.

With a hint of wood smoke on the breeze, he caught the sound of engines off in the distance.

"What's that?" Nibbles broke the silence.

"Tractors," Bru replied in a low tone. "They're probably taking off corn, or maybe soybeans."

Nibbles caught the sound of water falling, and up ahead he saw a semi-circular formation. Bru stroked away again and they moved forward.

"There's rapids up there," said Nibbles in delight. "How are we going to get up that?"

Nibbles studied the situation with the binoculars. The banks came down at an impressive forty-five degrees. While the only major growth on them appeared to be grass and weeds, and willow-like shrubs, right on top of that the forest grew. It seemed pretty thick from this position and this angle. Now that he understood how much the water level varied from season to season, he could see that 'islands' covered in scrub were under water during floods and the big run-off in springtime.

No wonder nothing grew on them. Scraped clean by ice; the dwarf willows were the few things that could survive, sheltered in amongst the boulders. Brubaker appeared to be listening. Then, without further ado, he nudged the boat a little farther ahead, into the eddy behind a rock; and sat there some more.

"There's the sweet spot," he said quietly. "Watch this."

He shoved his paddle way out forwards, then gave a little sweep, with the blade held straight up and down, angled slightly. The boat drifted to the left, but kept station. The foaming currents all around them had little effect.

"Eddy out," murmured Bru, and they pulled into a spot behind another rock.

"Here we go," said Bru and he did it again, and this time water splashed up high on the curve of the bow.

The tip of the canoe seemed about to pass under the brim of a miniature waterfall, about a half-metre tall, and a metre wide. Nibbles tensed up, ready with his paddle and expecting a boatful of water. Brubaker patiently maneuvered the boat until a big boulder was on their right, with the riverbank looming over them in a cutaway curvature to their left.

The water roiled down in a series of flat, shallow steps, but Bru saw no major standing waves. No foaming holes, no logs, no overhanging trees. A good portion of the river followed the curve of the bank, by-passing the semi-circle of sunken rocks that foamed and splashed and burbled to the ear. They sat in the foam, as it seemed to suck them forwards.

Nibbles was impressed.

"I'm going to need you to paddle on the left," said Brubaker over the noise of the rapids.

Nibbles dug in and began pulling, and in a surprising turn of speed, they reached the calm, glassy water above. Only fifty metres up the river and around the next bend, they came across an even bigger one.

"How are we going to do this?" asked Nibbles in a slight tone of worry.

He watched, fascinated, sure his buddy had it all figured out.

"Sometimes you have to get out and pull her through," said Brubaker. "But don't worry, that's why I brought a towel. Did you bring spare socks like I told you?"

Turns out Nibbles hadn't.

"That'll teach you," said Brubaker. "Now spark up one of them doobs."

The bow of the boat crunched into a golden sandbar, covered in scattered leaves, and with multi-coloured pebbles peeking through.

Crack.

Nibbles turned and had a look.

"Ah," said Brubaker, as the first of the Old Milwaukee slid down his parched and eager throat.

"And in the beginning the old man of the mountain said, 'let there be beer,'" he declaimed majestically, and poured a small libation upon the waters, a small but important ritual he hadn't enacted in far too many moons.

"You really are crazy, you know," said Nibbles.

"I know," sighed Brubaker in contentment. "I know."

Nibbles choked up and began to hack and cough, passing the joint back to the rear of the boat. It rocked gently with his movements.

"Cough! Cough!" he said.

"If there are any big cats about, they know we're here now," he observed, after catching his breath again.

Chuck just smiled.

"Sit and relax. Don't make no sudden moves," he advised.

Putting a paddle down into the sand to brace himself, balancing carefully with his beer, with the doobie clenched between his lips; he eased up and out of the craft.

Then he held the boat's gunwales for Nibbles to do the same.

"Hold up for a moment," he told Nibbles, and spent a minute studying the sand bar.

"Not much to see. Come on up," he instructed.

He pointed at the sand.

"That's a coon, that's a squirrel, that's deer, and that's a heron, a Great Blue," he told his friend. "That one there's a skunk."

He kept looking all around.

"A fine day in the neighbourhood," he said finally. "Just like, 'The Wind in the Willows,' or even, 'Hammy Hamster.'"

His buddy looked carefully but said nothing. For the most part, he would take his word for it.

"I should have brought my fishing rod," Nibbles noted. "What a fantastic day."

"One or two more sets of rapids, and then we'll be there," Brubaker reckoned. "If we take everything out of the boat, it shouldn't be too bad."

Brubaker showed him how to keep the boat right side up, and simply place the prow under your arm. With the two of them, Nibbles leading up the incline, they soon had the boat in the water again. Brubaker never would have guessed it, but he had some teaching abilities, and every so often the urge to pass something on came over him.

"The Shashawanaga is one of a very few major water systems in Canada which lies entirely within the Carolinian Zone," he told the man in front.

"What's that?" asked Nibbles.

At the age of forty-four, and after three heart attacks in the last ten months, the art of relaxation was new to him. After three years on methadone, he had taken up a new hobby, with a cheap camera that he bought for two bucks at a garage sale. He liked to take pictures, and Brubaker seemed to know the country like no one Nibbles had ever heard of. He put the paddle down, and with full zoom on the lens, took a couple of shots. Brubaker described how the river came down out of the plateau of south-central Ontario, curving back to the northwest; collecting behind the dunes at Le Gran Binge in a series of meandering bayous, before finding its way to Lake Kandechio.

"Because we're so far south, and because of the Great Lakes, the climate is actually the same as it would be a lot farther south," Bru explained as the two men paddled quietly and steadily along a flat stretch of river. "It's the same weather, and to a certain extent, the same wildlife and plant life as in the Carolinas. Maybe like Kentucky, down around there."

"So; what does that mean?" asked Nibbles.

He saw a big blue bird leap up out of the shallows. It went silently flapping up the river. He was familiar with the blue herons.

"It means it's a very special place," his friend concluded.

For the time being, Nibbles had to be satisfied with that.

Chapter Twenty-Two

"Stand up on environment, says local pundit..."

Brubaker was a little drunk and working from sore memory, but he had the sense of it well enough, as he told Nibbles about his latest peeve.

"A local man is hoping that Canadians will stand up for the environment," he said loudly in a TV newscaster's big brown voice. "This is in response to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's announcement that Canada will be unable to meet the new environmental protocols."

The trees swallowed up the noise, as they swung and swayed in their turn.

Nibbles looked on in a kind of moody contempt. Brubaker was obviously drunk, or affected by the sun and the wind. Maybe it was just all the fresh air.

"You've been spending too much time in the basement," he observed.

"I know, I fuckin' know," said Brubaker. "This is real, really real. Do you know what I mean?"

Nibbles just sat there, drinking in the scene, laid out like a feast just for the two of them.

"If I had a website I'd really be kicking ass," mused Bru. "God-damned girly-men."

He stopped paddling and they drifted for a while.

Nibbles remained silent.

"Our city fathers are afraid to ask too many questions," said Brubaker in a meditative tone, almost as if Nibbles wasn't there. "They can't make statements, because that costs votes. Look at this ban on pesticides. Every year it comes up, and every year they fuddle-duddle and piss-ant around the issue. It's all because a few people are employed in lawn care. Yeah, the sort of people who run for city council are also the kind of people that employ a lawn service to come in and spray. One of the minor joys of being a fuckin' aristocrat is a nice lawn."

Nibbles had nothing to say to this observation.

"Look up ahead, on the left," said Brubaker finally. "O'ow ate gidizhaamin. This is where we're going."

"What the fuck does that mean?" asked Nibbles.

"It means, in Attiouwandaron, 'this the place we are going,'" said Brubaker. "It's an Ojibwe dialect."

"You're quite mad, of course," said Nibbles, quoting a popular line from a popular movie.

"Of course," said Bru, giving the appropriate response. "Besides, fortune favours the diseased mind. So anyway, this Vaccares guy is in the paper, and he's cutting my fuckin' grass."

"That's not good," agreed Nibbles, sparking up their seventh marijuana cigarette.

"This knucklehead has posted a big challenge on his fuckin' website. He says, 'the government should become pioneers in its energy and pollution choices.'" said Bru. "The government puts all kinds of obstacles in the way of wind developments, and shut down guys who tried to use methane from their farms to generate electricity. They couldn't get a hookup, after paying for miles of poles and wires."

Nibbles may not have been listening.

"The government wants to retain control of production, no matter what self-serving nonsense they put out in press releases, and the 'objectivity' of the press means they have no critical faculties. The press specializes in never drawing any conclusions. If the government said the moon was made of blue cheese, the media would quote them on the front page. Fuckin' bastards," he added. "I'm not even on the internet. You know?"

Nibbles gathered that not being on the internet pissed Bru off something fierce.

"Well, Big Frank is kind of old," he agreed.

The cable service was in Frank Brubaker's name.

"This fucking dingbat says, and I quote, 'if people continue to consume energy at their current rate, the world's oil supplies will run out in this century,' he says...fuck! I've known that since 1973!"

Bru quieted down for a while. They eased the boat in, and carefully got out. Bru took a rope and pulled the boat up. He went up the bank and tied it. Bru wandered off into the bushes and Nibbles presumed he was taking a leak. All thoughts of big cats, or their supposed mission, were long since departed.

"You're a half-wit, Brubaker," Nibbles told the trees around him, snapping open another can of pop. "Dumb as a stick."

Unspoken, the rebuttal revolved around in Chuck's head.

"I don't mind being called a half-wit. Coming from someone like you it's really a kind of a compliment. And you're as dumb as two sticks."

The real problem, as Brubaker saw it; unzipping his fly to relieve himself a few yards away; was that CEO's and the Boards of Directors of corporations and companies had one sole fiduciary responsibility. To increase shareholder value. Brubaker was watching TV the other night. He saw a documentary about a native reserve up around Fort Chipewyan. This was two hundred and fifty kilometres downstream from the tar sands development in Alberta. Royal Schnell Oil wanted to build a big new refinery, right here in Lennox; to process tar sands crude. The natives were suffering high rates of cancer. High levels of mercury were found in the fish. Those fish were unsafe for pregnant women to eat; fish with all kinds of lesions and tumors in their bodies. High levels of arsenic were being detected on the reserve—and the natives suffered from the types of cancers that exactly corresponded to the kinds of cancers caused by arsenic. Royal Schnell had fifty million dollars to spread around. Local leaders were asking for the government's environmental assessment process to be 'sped up as much as possible.'

Locally, people were kissing Royal Schnell's ass all over the place, yet one lady raised objections to six wind turbines; citing, 'noise concerns!'

The turbine project was shelved.

The people of Lennox would pay a very high price for what was essentially a hundred permanent, high-paying jobs, and a couple of thousand construction jobs, all temporary. Bru would see no benefit at all. Just a shortened lifespan, so some creep in a suit could get rich.

Fuck them.

Essentially, there were no moral considerations. No ethical considerations came into play. Assuming you could avoid running afoul of the law, or assuming at least that the fines didn't cut too deeply into profits; you could do anything. If you drove share prices up, pushed out a good dividend once in a while; if people thought it was a good risk, and recommended it to their friends as an investment; you were doing well.

Leverage the fuck out of your assets and take it out in cash bonuses. Every CEO had a poison-pill buyout clause in their contracts. Everyone knew that.

God; how the other half lives! For some reason, the government had just slapped 'eco-charges,' on green products. But no charges on luxury, big-ticket items like yachts! Or 'personal watercraft.' Or anything that made any sense at all.

It wasn't easy to prove criminal conduct in a white collar crime. The cops and the courts needed somebody to rat somebody off. Otherwise, if the government and the criminals stuck together, and contradicted each other, if they 'couldn't remember,' how could you draw any conclusions? Every witness has equal weight. But when one guy admitted guilt and knowledge, and was willing to testify against another; then a case could be made in court.

'We can change the penalties with a stroke of the legislative pen,' as the words of a recent editorial went. 'Changing attitudes is the hardest thing in the world.'

As far as stuff going up a smokestack, as long as the government knew about it; as long as you followed guidelines, you could get away with it forever.

He was struck by a sudden thought. He was pissing once, and his foot was six inches from quite a large snapping turtle, just laying in the long grass. Then came the thud-thud of his heart as he remembered the cougar. The wind whipped up through the clearing under the cedars; and a few leaves blew off to another destiny. There were tracks there, in a sandy patch. Without any talking, all the sounds were there for him: sparrows, crows, a blue jay a hundred metres away.

"Poo-pip...poo-pip!"

He didn't know the name of it, but it was either a woodpecker or some other bird, circling head-down and going around and around the branches of a small conifer. The thing regarded Bru with disinterest. Figured he was too small to be eaten, or something.

"Hey, little buddy," he said in drunken reverence.

It just kept pecking at the bark, and going around in circles.

He hadn't affected the outcome. And that's good, right?

Something slithered a few inches and stopped again. Slightly nervy, slightly drunk; he uttered a startled, "Whoa!"

What the heck was that? Zipping up, he looked around and found a long twig. He used it to poke and push aside a few leaves.

"I'll be damned," he said.

It was a salamander. He had only seen two in his entire life. He vaguely remembered seeing one at the Scout Camp when he was about twelve. One of the scouts caught one on a line hung off a wooden footbridge that used to be there. More recently, last summer in fact; there was a dead one at the Lennox Bay Marina.

Chuck assumed a similar scenario. The thing died, or was killed, because it got hooked on someone's line.

This one just crouched there, looking at him, with its eye turned back in its head. He gave it a gentle poke in the flank, and it moved exactly one inch and stopped.

"All right, little fella," he said, standing.

He was about to go back to the riverbank when he spotted more movement. There were two more salamanders. No, three more!

"Holy frijoles!" he said, astounded by the size of the last one. "I've never seen nothing like that around here."

They were native to the area, he knew that much. It's just that they're quiet.

One salamander, perched on a flat hunk of rock overhung by branches but exposed to the sun, must have been a good three-footer. Considering all the time he had spent in the woods around here, it was a kind of a shock. That's when he saw the other tracks, big ones. Just then, the big salamander buggered off down the far side of his rock. Bru turned to examine the tracks. A dozen metres away, he could hear Nibbles muttering to himself about a 'half-wit.'

Bru grinned. He and the little salamanders listened in amusement for a while.

"...a fucking half-wit, Brubaker..."

Bru could literally hear him smoking. A real greenhorn, but what the heck. He pulled the camera out of his belt pouch, and snapped a few shots. He put his lighter down beside the most distinct footprint to give some idea of scale. The last rain was two days ago. The sand was moist and wet. The top layer of sand had been dried by the breeze, but the sides were still kind of crumbly, or crumbling...

"Uh, huh," he muttered.

He stood up to survey the surrounding brush, especially the low underbrush, and looking for anything high, like a big tree branch.

The place seemed empty of cougars.

Now that he knew what he was looking at, his heart subsided, but not entirely. It kept up a dull thud, thud, thud. The adrenal juices were at a pleasurable level. It was nothing out of hand that he couldn't deal with. He studied the tracks some more, admitting to himself that it was very difficult to tell the difference between a large dog, a wolf, or other big predators. There were no boot tracks around anywhere. Most dogs were with someone, after all.

Just then Nibbles was at his shoulder and he almost jumped right out of his skin.

"Look what I found," said Nibbles, holding up a scrap of cloth.

"Oh, fuck, what did I tell you?" said Bru. "Where did you get it?"

He asked Nibbles not to pick stuff up; not without showing him the lie, the location, the circumstances.

"Who's a half-wit now?" he said.

"Right over here," said Nibbles, but Bru just grabbed at the scrap of cloth and shoved it into his bush jacket pocket.

"Oh; yeah? Look what I found," he told his buddy.

"By thunder and Jesus," gasped Nibbles. "Is that what I think it is?"

"I don't know, my erstwhile friend."

(What does that mean? thought Nibbles.)

"Keep your voice down. We're tracking into the wind, and these seem fairly fresh."

Nibbles was impressed.

"Um, what does that mean?" he asked.

"It means we go back to the boat, get a canteen, the cameras, my bow, a couple of granola bars. Don't light up a smoke on me just now, okay? Or you can wait here."

"I ain't waiting here!" he hissed in angry response to Bru's little dig.

He shoved the smokes back into his pocket.

"Then don't smoke. Stay thirty metres back. Don't talk. Watch where you're putting your feet. We'll be diddy-bopping pretty slow, and when I hold up, just stop, okay? Don't come rushing up on me."

Bru told him, 'thirty metres,' knowing full well that it would be more like ten, or just about right.

Tenderfeet were all the same.

"Um, um; okay," agreed Nibbles as they gingerly traipsed back to the waterline and then stood by the canoe.

Chuck pulled it up higher and double-checked the safety rope.

Brubaker quickly pulled out the little twenty-five-pound bow his old man had made him for Christmas when he was about six years old. He put his leg through the string, bent the bow against the back of his calf, and had it strung in a few seconds. He pulled three arrows out of the rotten old leather quiver. His old man hand-made the thing; stained black with shoe-polish thinned down with mineral spirits. Notching one to the bowstring, he put the bow aside; and then carefully shoved two arrows down the back of his coat-collar, inside of his coat, and into his left back pocket. Nibbles raised an eyebrow but said little.

"That's not so bad," Bru said, as he tucked the plastic tongue of the canteen's belt-hook under his broad leather belt.

"Anything else?" asked Nibbles.

Brubaker sucked back the remains of the tall beer he was working on, and chucked the empty into the boat. Lifting the lid of the cooler, he pulled out another.

"No telling how long we'll be gone," he said, with a quick glance at the sky. "We'd better make sure we're back here by about one-thirty."

He shoved the beer into his hooded sweatshirt pocket and zippered it up. He did up his coat halfway.

"Neither one of us has a watch," protested Nibbles.

What was he getting himself into?

"Yeah, mine's broken. But don't worry. We won't go too crazy, okay?" Chuck assured him.

Then he led off, back up the slope and into the woods, proceeding very slowly. Chuck listened carefully, watching and looking at everything. Nibbles figured it was about noon or twelve-thirty by now. At this rate they couldn't be going too far. He hoped. Nibbles needed a smoke, but there was no way in hell he was going to wait by the boat all alone, wondering where old Brubaker was. No way!

Bru told him earlier that a big cat would sleep much of the time, hunting mostly at dusk and dawn.

"How the hell would he know?" he muttered.

"Psst." Brubaker pointed down. "Get a few shots of this while I look ahead."

Nibbles took a picture of the tracks, and a small creature he took to be a lizard? A gecko? Like in the car insurance commercials; only different. But exactly how, he really couldn't say. He had no idea; as Bru beckoned him on.

"Okay. The wind is in our faces," Bru explained. "I'm just going to follow these as far as the place we're going."

Then he was off again, a real man-tracker.

Nibbles carefully picked his way, occasionally catching a vague glimmer of the game trail they were on. Again Bru paused and pointed down at the path. When he got there, Chuck had moved on and it took a minute to pick it out. Then Nibbles saw a footprint, smaller than his own, deeply treaded. Bru had discovered a mud hole, and simply pushed back the overlying leaf litter.

Nibbles saw that a dead leaf was stuck under the tread, squashed down by the weight of the person. Even to Nibbles, it looked like it had been there forever, cast in mud that was now hardened to a rock-like consistency.

"How did you know that would be there?" he muttered, then turning to the slope of a hill on his right, he saw a mucky seep coming down the hillside, all black and stinky.

"Huh!" he said.

Bru was disappearing up ahead, and so Nibbles went on again.

Water seeped out of the hill and across the trail. As the season advanced, the muddy spot dried up some. It was simple, really. Once you knew the facts behind the magic. Nibbles wondered just how long a track could stay in the woods. Even to his untrained, and admittedly inexperienced eye, it was clear that if nothing else came along and obliterated it, the footprint could be pretty old news. This was a dry summer so far. Last winter, there was very little snow.

So far, no big cats had attacked them. Brubaker stopped again, and turning, waved him on up, with a finger across the lips to signal silence.

"Check this out," he whispered in Nibbles' ear.

Nibbles couldn't see a blasted thing.

"Where?" he asked.

Then he saw a fire pit.

At first glance, it was nothing more than a ring of stones, but it looked very old. It was filled in with ashes and dirt, with a small, dark and wet-looking pile of kindling beside it.

That was about it. There was a thin grass, about twenty to thirty centimetres tall, all over the place. He noted what looked like a small clump of birch-bark held down under a rock, and a blackened coffee pot.

"Okay," he began, but Chuck pointed here, and there, and there, and kept a hand on his arm to stop him from going anywhere.

"What do you see there?" Chuck murmured, pointing.

"Holy shit!" he said out loud. "That's awesome."

Nibbles was amazed. He hadn't even seen the lean-to at first.

This was made out of poles and brush, roofed with boughs of pine. He didn't know his trees, but they were all laid on there just so.

"What's that?" he gasped, and Chuck grimaced.

"Under that plastic is probably Hilier's equipment," he said, all somber and serious.

"Fuck!"

"Yeah. He's dead all right," muttered Brubaker.

"And over there?" wondered Nibbles, who couldn't make it out because of the shade under the trees and bushes, which still had some leaves to block the wan, slanting light.

"Stay right there and shoot everything," said Bru, as he carefully moved through some tall weeds, trying to walk where Hilier hadn't, or so Nibbles surmised.

"It looks like a stove. Some boards between the two trees," called Bru. "Two boards, four nails kind of thing. And the plywood."

Nibbles noted a shiny spoon or something on the platform as well.

"This camp hasn't been used in some time," Bru observed. "Hear that noise? That's the waterfalls."

"How far are they?" asked Nibbles.

"Probably a couple of hundred metres," he was told.

Inside the lean-to was a sleeping bag, mouldering on the groundsheet. Bru used his telephoto lens to look into the shelter's interior, popping off a few shots with his flash.

"It's hard to say how long that's been there. But he obviously expected to return and sleep in it that night," Bru reasoned. "Normally, I would have camped up above the falls."

Eyeballing everything, he mentally reviewed the situation of the camp. Hilier couldn't have known the area too well. But that notion wasn't justified conclusively. Two Falls was on private property. Without the permission of the landowner, you had to camp somewhere off the beaten path. Plastic had been put over the poles, then more poles, then the boughs laid on to hold it down, and possibly obscure it from view? All of this was way more work than pitching a simple tent, waterproof and bug-free.

"I wish I knew more about this fuckin' Hilier. Was he a secretive guy? Paranoid someone would scoop his next project?" but there was nothing Nibbles could say to that one.

"Everybody and his brother thinks they should have a fishing show, or an outdoors show," reckoned Brubaker.

"You should have a show, Bru," quipped Nibbles.

Brubaker just grinned in silence, then he snapped a series of photos, thoroughly documenting the state of the campsite, the layout, and the surroundings of the little clearing under the cedars.

"The side-creeks don't flood the same way as the river," he told Nibbles. "The whole valley this one runs in can't be more than two kilometres long. This is where I found my first beaver dam in Lennox County. I mean, other than the ones up at The Pines."

"When was that?" asked Nibbles curiously.

Clearly, there were a lot of things he didn't know about Bru, yet they grew up on the same street.

"I don't know...maybe about 1987?" muttered Bru. "Something like that. I don't know how long they've been up there."

"Where?" asked Nibbles in some confusion.

"The beaver lodges up at The Pines," explained Chuck patiently.

Finally Bru led them off up the trail, which was slightly more distinct now. Nibbles wondered why the trail followed the hilltops, but then the creek was steeply banked. The banks were too choked with bushes. Even with minimal water in it, the creek bed was all rocks and boulders. Deer would take the easiest way, right? The noise of falling water became louder and more insistent in the consciousness, quickly becoming a dull roar. He huffed and puffed his way up another steep incline, maybe twenty metres up.

They weren't exactly hills. The terrain was the result of the gullying effect of spring runoff, each little side valley taking hundreds of years to erode. When Nibbles caught sight of the falls, he was thrilled in the sense that they had found it, but it was also somewhat smaller than what the noise implied.

The creek, crystal clear, unlike the river a few hundred metres away, came out of a little hole in the bushes, across a sloping rock of which no more than a metre could be seen. Shooting down, riffling across a wider shelf, then it pooled up, seventy-five or a hundred millimetres deep. It went out again through another slot, down another racing rivulet; and into another pool, where the speed slowed and the depth increased. Finally, the water curved to the right, and after one waterfall perhaps a third of a metre high, there was a ledge about seven metres wide, and then a drop of four or five metres.

Nibbles could see a massive chunk of rock ledge broken off and situated on a pile of boulders under the lip of the falls. For fifty metres at least, the creek ran on solid rock, with the occasional loose stone sticking up. There were small pools, and sandy riffles with a miniature watery weed growing in it.

"How did you find this place?" asked Nibbles, enjoying the scene despite the terrible knowledge of the campsite roiling around in his head.

"I figured if there was one waterfall, there had to be others," explained Bru. "There's Three Falls further downstream. There's Rocky Glen Falls, on Rocky Glen Creek, which also drains into the Shashawanaga."

He pondered whether to burden Nibbles with the concept of 'fall lines,' and other details.

"Only Rocky Glen Falls is actually public property. But on some days this valley is crawling with rock hounds. I followed the creek in from the road, which is about twelve hundred metres over that way," he said, pointing to the south, or at least in the general direction of the sun.

"This slab here is full of what they call pteropoda, that's the Aronka shale deposit. And these little cone-shaped hash pipes are zaphrentis prolifica. I got a real nice one at home, at least I used to," said Bru. "I had one that was worn smooth and looked like a vulva."

Nibbles seemed oblivious to such nice technical details. Maybe it was just the bizarre and unfamiliar terminology.

"On top we have the Widder Beds, named after some little old lady; then the Hungry Holler formation; which used to be called the Encrinal Lime and the Coral Zone...these are corals here...see? The Aronka shale is what weathers to that soft, blue mud. That's where, if you're lucky, you might find a gastropod; the platycares aronkanensis..." but Nibbles must have gotten lost somewhere.

"Brubaker! What's that?" he asked in dismay.

Bru just grinned, totally in his element, temporarily unflappable.

Something gleamed white and bony from beneath a shrub covered in flowers. These floral anomalies were a holdover from some abandoned homestead of a previous century.

Bru had seen everything from wild onions, tiger lilies, feral periwinkle, and other stuff. Sometimes the government bought land that was once settled, to return it to floodplain protection or natural regeneration. Sometimes private citizens held it as a 'managed forest,' or leased it for commercial tree plantations.

Carefully examining the ground, Bru was on hands and knees.

"Fifty years ago, there were a lot less trees in Ontario," Bru told Nibbles. "And they were a lot smaller. The first time I ever saw this place was about thirty years ago."

Bru was silent for a moment.

"And it has changed, that's for sure."

It would be hard to put your finger on any one specific thing.

How could you say, 'That tree used to be four inches in diameter?'

Of course that must be true, and that said nothing to the observer. You couldn't say, 'all these trees are bigger than I expected.' Although it was true enough.'

"That's the biggest fossil I ever saw," muttered Brubaker, still on hands and knees. "Technically speaking, it's not a fossil at all but a concretion...hello!"

Brubaker regretted an eight-inch crystiphyllum superbum; which he used to have in his garden on Sigourney St. Gone now, probably. The new owners would have cleared it out with the trash. They would have pitched it with all of his other belongings; stuff that was just too much for his mom and Diane to haul out.

"What do you have there?" asked Nibbles, catching the whiff of excitement in the air. "Do you even know what you're talking about?"

"Looks like a dental pick," said Brubaker.

"A what?" said Nibbles.

"A dental pick. It's a tool used by dentists, to pick around in your mouth," he added.

He thought for a moment.

"This pretty much ID's the campsite. It has to be Hilier. He was known for lying on the ground, picking apart moss in front of a macro lens, looking for nematodes and shit."

"What kind of toad?" asked Nibbles. "Toad shit?"

He was impressed in spite of himself.

"Nematodes," Chuck laughed. "They got warts and they go, 'ribbet...'"

He carefully lifted the morphous, pale accretion of half-billion year-old critters.

"This is Devonian. It's about five hundred and forty million years old. It's all corals, trilobites, brachiopods. There's like fifty different types of fossil around here. It's a chunk of a larger bed, just like the shelf of the falls."

Taking it, Nibbles eyes widened.

"That's not as heavy as I thought," he told Chuck.

Something fell off, and Bru took a glance at the long grass where it went.

"Probably just gravel," he said, and then Chuck gently placed the fossil into the doubled up plastic shopping bags which he habitually carried on expeditions.

You never knew what kind of garbage you might find in the woods, and he liked to haul it out when he could.

"That don't smell too good," Nibbles told him, but Bru was oblivious.

"We scooped the bastards," was all he said. "We scooped the bastards but good, this time! Hee-hee."

"What's that smell?" insisted Nibbles.

"Panther piss, cougar crap, tiger turds. Jaguar jizzum. How the fuck would I know?"

came the retort.

"I think it's time to go," said Nibbles. "Anyhow, I don't want to be in the same vehicle as that puma poop."

"Ah. We'll figure a way to put it in the boat, on the roof," said Bru as he looked up at the sky. "Grab any more shots you want and we'll go."

He put the bag down, and picked up the bow. Nibbles tied the loose plastic in two tight knots, wishing he had more bags. The smell made him retch slightly. Bru cracked a beer, and had a long drink. Then another.

Nibbles realized he would have to carry the thing.

He set it down for a moment.

"I'm going to have one last quick look around, and take a piss," and then Bru stepped away.

He went stalking farther up the trail by the babbling brook.

Nibbles began clambering down the steps formed by rocks and roots and branches, trying to get down a very steep bank to shoot the falls from below. When he got to the bottom, he carefully stepped from wet rock to wet rock, careful not to slip and bust an ankle.

"Hey! Brubaker! You didn't tell me about the cave!" he bellowed up to the circle of sky visible through the tree-tops.

No answer.

Quickly losing all sense of time even as the shadows lengthened, Nibbles began to shoot, some with flash, some without, some zoomed in, and some at a wider angle. He stopped to re-load the old-fashioned, film-type camera, then went on.

The ledge of the falls hung over a good two metres. Under that was an empty space about three metres high. It was two to two and a half metres deep, back up high under the roof. The floor wasn't too level. It sloped up at the rear, in a bank of gritty-looking bluish clay. Bits of shattered limestone scattered underfoot were a telling reminder that this ledge was only temporary. As if the huge chunks scattered all down the streambed weren't enough to say it. Whether it was water erosion, eating away at the clay; thus causing the ledge to cave in, or frost, splitting the rocks apart, he didn't know.

It was beautiful, and wild as all hell, and he was damned glad to be here. Looking out from under the falling spray, thin, yet sparkling against the blue sky, he could see lonely, dark-looking jack pines on a nearby hilltop.

The air was as clean and envigourating as he had ever known it. And Brubaker knew these places like the back of his hand? Where had he been? Probably sitting in a jail cell.

He thought of his son. He thought of taking his son fishing and golfing and hiking.

Nibbles tried to think of the future, and to let go of the past.

Now Brubaker—Brubaker could use some letting go.

That's for damn sure.

Editorial: Ask questions first, dig later...

As things stand now, it is not clear if human activities are causing low water levels in the upper Great Lakes. Until the science is complete, Michigan politicians should forget about playing God with the St. Irene River.

The plan to install huge concrete blocks in the river to help sustain water levels will have unforeseen results. What would dumping concrete into one of only two sturgeon spawning habitats do? It is obvious that the channel beneath the Clearwater Bridge is deeper than when Europeans first arrived. The river 'mouth,' actually the outlet from the lake; used to be swift and shallow. Historical documents show there were originally three channels, and two islands at the south end of Lake Kandechio. Known only as, 'The Rapids,' before settlement, boats were hauled upriver by men and teams of oxen. A 2005 study indicated that things changed in the 1890's. The river was dredged to a uniform channel depth of 20 feet, (about six metres.) From 1908 to 1925; sand and gravel were extracted from the river bed for use as building materials. In fact, the Lennox Yacht Club harbour is man-made, and the channel was deepened in the 1930's. In 1962, more dredging occurred, which took the channel depth to 27 feet, (8 metres.)

Since then, approximately two to six metres at various locations has disappeared of its own volition between the bridge and Brindle Creek on the U.S. side, according to the study.

A deeper channel at Lennox may allow more water to drain from the lakes. Lack of rain in recent seasons, low snow-pack, natural cycles, and deforestation also play a role.

Chapter Twenty-Three

So, what do you want for dinner?

"It's my turn to cook," said Frank Brubaker. "So. What do you want for dinner?"

"Oh, I don't care," said the son, who was as busy as a quadriplegic at a hip-hop dancing contest lately.

"Stew and cabbage?" asked the elder.

"I don't care," said Bru.

"Cheeseburgers and soup?" asked his dad, eyebrows raised, belly extended, shoulders thrown back and big hairy arms hanging like an ape's.

All two hundred seventy-eight pounds of him; with the usual shakes and tremors.

"I don't care," replied a stressed-out Bru.

"Hot dogs and chili?" asked Frank. "Pork chops and potatoes? Steak and rice? Chicken nuggets and squash?"

This game could go on for a while. At the end of it, all appetite would be irrevocably lost.

"Sausages and sweet potatoes?"

'Argh!' thought Chuck.

"I don't care," he said.

After a while his old man retreated to the chair in front of the TV, to think, to mull it over, and hopefully to come up with some kind of a decision all on his own.

"Peas," said Frank Brubaker. "We got lots of peas...?"

Peas, then, thought Chuck.

Let's have fuckin' peas.

In the background, he heard a commercial on the set, blasting out as the old man always had it turned up too loud, even though he claimed to be able to hear it when set at a lower level. It was the ad for reward miles.

'Senorita, are you trying to break my heart?' the matador in the oil painting said.

"No, she just forgot to replace the batteries in her vibrator," bellowed Bru, who then turned away and went back down in the basement for a while.

The phone rang, and someone asked for, 'Mr. Brubaker.'

"Which one?" he asked and the person hesitated.

He tried to place the accent. Cambodia? Nigeria? Bangladesh?

"Mr. Charles H. Brubaker?"

"Yes?" he said with a hint of exasperation.

"I am with the verification department of the..."

"Give me your number, and I'll call you back," said Brubaker.

There was a kind of stunned silence on the line.

"Take me off the fuckin' list," he blurted and hung up.

He was tired of all these cons and scam artists targeting them. Someone somewhere thought his old man was rich. Where in the hell they got that idea, he couldn't guess. Probably just the address. The Brubaker house was actually the crappiest one, in an otherwise fairly affluent, blue-collar, working-class sort of a neighbourhood.

Someone tried the old Spanish Lottery gag. Someone tried a substitute cheque-book scam. That's the one where you put your fake name and someone else's real account number on the cheque re-order form. Probably stole the old man's garbage to get the personalized re-order form. Someone was having a real go at the old man's retirement fund; pitiful as it was. Bru was fairly convinced. He spent the time thinking it out, but he simply didn't know how to catch the bastards. For that you needed real resources. He knew that much. The OPP had a cyber-crimes unit, but they spent most of their time catching online pedophiles. He couldn't argue against that noble endeavor, but how hard was it to catch con artists on the phone?

All you had to do was sit and wait for the fucking phone to ring.

"Canadians have to learn to be more rude," he advised the old man.

The old man once hung up on someone. He stood there; hands shaking, voice quavering with upset; tongue going in and out, in and out, in and out...hands going full blast in a three-inch tremor on the left side, and a six-inch tremor on the right.

Some guy was trying to get the old man to give his PIN number out over the phone!

When his old man got going; he would exhale in a rush.

The sound was like, "hyou-hyou-hyou-hyou..." real soft but discernable.

His quivering chin made his dentures go click-click-click...clickety-click.

Mr. Charles H. Brubaker would very much like to get his hands on one or two of them guys, preferably in a well-lit, but remote back alley somewhere. He'd pound their fucking faces against the wall for awhile. In the background, the Speed Channel was running at low volume. A 250-cc motorcycle GP racer was being interviewed by Cauley Morkin.

"It's too bad you crashed out in practice and had to start at the back," said Morkin.

"Yes," said Antonio Fescobaldi, second in points and previous, Bru thought it was 2007, champion.

"I broke a feenger on my foot," he went on and the announcer broke in.

"Toe...you mean toe," said Morkin helpfully.

And Fescobaldi said, "Yes, that is right. I broke a feenger on my toe."

Chuck laughed at that one.

Just when you thought there was no hope for TV!

From quiet contemplation comes chaos.

He and Nibbles had done some hard thinking.

They decided to call in to the Aronka cop shop in about a week or ten days. Bru had a story to write; and a ten-day deadline. Best get to work. Nibbles would quietly fade out, and Bru had a good line all cooked up for the cops.

'No worries, mate.'

"Shit!" he gasped.

"How could I have forgotten?" he leapt up and headed up the back stairs on his way to the garage.

The conspirators had completely forgotten about that God-damned fossil.

He unlocked the side door and turned on the light. The boat was on sawhorses outside the back wall of the building, which was eight metres square. The cooler was tucked under one of his long, white-painted work benches. He pulled it out and shoved it onto the bench under one of the big floodlights.

When he lifted the lid, the smell hit him like a wave.

Hit with a putrid miasma of stinkiness, he pulled his head back quickly, slammed the lid on it and took it outside to the patio. He walked away for a moment, breathing deeply. Bru cussed softly under his breath out of respect for any neighbours who might be outside on a chilly October evening. He held his breath and closed his mouth tightly. Smell and flavour are closely linked. He yanked off the lid, pulled out the bag, put it on the picnic table, then walked away again. He pulled out and opened his pocket knife, a relic of his Uncle John. Then he went and cut the tightly-knotted upper portion of the bag away, again holding his breath.

"Ugh! Gag me with a frickin' spoon," he grumbled.

Reaching in, he picked the thing out and put it on the table. Chuck went to dispose of the bag into a handy garbage bin, which unfortunately did not have a lid.

He went to the back of the house. Unwinding the stiff and curly plastic hose, he turned it on and set the nozzle to a fine spray. He began washing the fossil accretion of mud, dirt, and assorted crud, hoping the water would cut through the smell. It was enough to make him gag. Brubaker was confused. The stuff he saw coming off under the pressure of the spray was dirt, true enough. But it wasn't shit, and so he couldn't account for the smell. It was too rank, too pungent.

He cast his mind around. He remembered the cat's slimy ass, and how it could leave a real pong behind on the arm of a chair. But that was only similar, not the same.

The smell of a male cat's backside? A big cat? What if a big cat sprayed it?

Most of the smell was gone, diluted by water. Maybe it would freeze or something.

He took the rock back into the shop under the lights. Once he fired up the kerosene heater—how could the air get any worse in here—he'd have a closer look at it, with the added bonus of Hilier's own pick to do the looking. Searching his numerous pockets for a smoke, he was again heading back to the house when he found the scrap of cloth in his hunting-shirt pocket. He spun around and put it on the bench a couple of feet away from the stone, already drying under the lights. Then he went into the house to get smokes, a lighter, his camera, a pen and a notepad. There was something a little odd about a fossil that smelled bad.

There was also something odd, something quirky in Brubaker's makeup. Just when he should be serious, he saw the incongruity. When he should be sober and industrious, he saw the absurdity.

The kerosene stove got going, and he closed the grating.

He set up his cheap digital camera. It was capable of videos and sound as well. It sat there on a tripod as he began to enact for its benefit a hammy alien autopsy scene. But it didn't last long, as he stood there by the bench under the lights, and picked away more dark, leaf-litter looking stuff. A little shiny white thingy fell off and landed on the top of the bench with a 'tick-tick-tick,' sound.

When his shocked eyes and tired brain finally comprehended what it was that he was looking at, a sick sense of dread hit him right in the stomach.

"Oh, shit," he said. "Oh, God."

He stood there thinking.

"Oh, Brubaker...what have you done?"

It was about a half, the bottom half, of what was clearly a tooth. A human tooth, an incisor by the look of it. The sharp end had a little wear, but it was otherwise perfect. No doubt about it. In Bru's mind Hilier, being a TV celebrity, would have picture-perfect teeth.

"Holy fuck," he said in dismay.

What the heck now? What had they gotten...no; what had he gotten them into this time? Mr. Charles Henry Brubaker was in deep shit now. Not that he couldn't explain everything.

It's just that he preferred not to.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Human remains found near Aronka...

Aronka — Police remain tight-lipped regarding rumours that human remains have again been found nearby.

Speculation in this community is rife. It is rumoured that the remains are those of Harold Hilier, a television wildlife presenter who went missing a few months ago in the vicinity.

Aronka OPP spokesperson Constable Doug Griffiths could neither confirm nor deny that Hilier or any other person had been the victim of a cougar attack. He also refused to comment on whether more human remains have been found, and could not speculate as to the source of the rumour. Local residents who preferred not to be identified indicated to this paper that forensics teams from Toronto and London have sealed off a four-kilometre stretch of Broken Face Road on the east side of the Shashawanaga River north of the village. Other witnesses indicate a search is being conducted on both sides of the riverbank. Searches are also being conducted on private property fronting on McKerlie Line. Police would neither confirm nor deny that a person of interest has been taken into custody.—Staff Writers.

***

Brubaker sat across the proverbial cigarette-scarred desk, looking at the men opposite.

Constables Bruce Edwards and Doug Griffiths of the Aronka OPP sat there looking back.

"I wish you'd be a little more honest with us," Edwards said understandingly. "It's like you don't trust us or something. We'd like to help you, Charles."

Griffiths stayed pretty silent for most of the interview.

He just sat there taking notes and watching like a hawk.

"Call me Chuck," murmured Bru smoothly in his best, and most charming, snake-oil salesman manner.

He was impressed with himself; by how certainly and confidently it came out.

His new family physician, Dr. Jabi-Hyooniabu, had been telling him that his pulse rate and blood pressure were, 'excellent.' He felt excellent, for some reason. Mind you, he hadn't committed any real crime. The trouble with the cops was they had too much power to fuck you over. But in the present circumstances, all he had to do was wait them out.

"I'm afraid my theories won't help you, officer," he uttered with dignity. "For one thing, I don't know any more than you do. Arguably less."

Flattery will get you everywhere.

"We got a big long report on you from the Lennox Police. But we take that sort of thing with a grain of salt. Anyway, you have no record...yet," the senior officer said.

"Considering who they are, I don't blame you," noted Bru to a brief silence.

Griffiths looked at him; waiting with a raised pen.

"I never eat breakfast, I never eat lunch. The Lennox cops picked me up what, about two-thirty? What time is it now?" Bru asked the cop. "About nine-thirty?"

The cop raised an eyebrow, but neither confirmed nor denied it.

"Yes. You're on disability. You could go to the soup kitchen," said Constable Edwards. "But you need the time to go to the beer store and go canoeing. The patch of cloth may be from a missing person. Her name is Norma Rice."

"I could go to the soup kitchen, yes. But, unfortunately, I'm locked up in here," noted Charles. "Incidentally, for a man with no record, I seem to be spending an awful lot of time under incarceration."

The cop explained how the scrap of cloth fit a description given by nursing home staff when the lady went missing in June.

"See. I told you. You know more about it than I do."

That's what Bru said.

The cops observed him putting that fact away in his mind. Yet the man wasn't scared, not at all. Did the implications of a missing person escape him? He was either as dumb as an ox, or innocent, or the world's greatest actor, which Doug Griffiths doubted for some reason.

"Boy, those Lennox cops drove like ninety on your highway. You should give them a ticket," suggested Bru.

The cops grinned.

"Tell us about your little buddy," asked Edwards, to no response.

"The Lennox Police say you're a conspiracy of one," Griffiths added with a smirk.

"That damned bed you got in there. With my back, that metre-and-a-half long bed is going to be a real treat. Yes, those six-millimetre steel plates you got for a head board and a foot board are really something. I may not be too mobile in the morning. Are you guys going to give me a sponge bath?"

Bru waved a limp and languid hand to make his point clear.

"Haw! Haw!" laughed the cops delightedly.

"I don't know about that," Edwards said. "But we might be able to find you a ham sandwich around here...somewheres."

He thought it out.

"So, you have a bad back, Chuck?" the officer asked. "Is that your canoe?"

No response.

Edwards went on.

"How heavy is that thing?"

"You must have driven by and seen a van that looked like mine," Bru pretended to speculate. "I don't own a canoe."

"A citizen saw a very tall person with a bow," said the other cop. "If I honestly believed you were trying to poach a cougar, even a dangerous animal, I'd have a problem with that."

"That would just be nuts," said Bru. "Paranoid, and delusional."

"That's exactly what I was thinking," said Edwards. "We appreciate the call, we appreciate the lump of bones. We appreciate the little hand-drawn map. We'd just like to know what you were doing out there in the first place."

"You saw that campsite," Bru broke in. "What kind of a nutcase was Hilier? And do you really think a cougar could shit him out in one big lump like that?"

"Well, what do you think, Chuck?" asked the cop, much more softly now.

"Never try to explain anything to a cop. That's advice I would give my own son," Bru told him.

The cops grinned.

"I'll give you a ride home now, Charles," Constable Griffiths said. "Would you like a couple of cheeseburgers, by any chance?"

Chapter Twenty-Five

Meanwhile, back at the Guardian-Standard...

"Looks like Brubaker is in hot water," Les Purvis told O'Keefe.

Bill was tapping away at his keyboard, and he looked over with a blank expression.

His lumpy head, with the exception of a swipe of long black hair combed sideways over the top, and the coke-bottle glasses as well, gleamed in the overhead fluorescent lights.

"What?" asked O'Keefe.

He blinked, suddenly disoriented by the switch of thought and direction.

"We're not supposed to release his name, at least not for a while yet," said Purvis.

Proud of his relationship with the police, he expected to take over as the number one crime and environmental reporter any day now.

"So what did he do?" asked O'Keefe more alertly.

He glanced at the wall clock, then at his watch, and then at the clock on the desk. He sat up in the chair. He was working on a simple little story. There was an hour to deadline; and no major emergencies. It was a slow news day. From the onset, this day looked like a real chore. There had been a few of those lately.

"It seems he went looking for a cougar."

Deliciously; Purvis had received a few letters of criticism from Brubaker. It was like Brubaker worked them over one at a time, or so the general consensus of opinion around the office had it.

O'Keefe was smart enough not to read them. But Les did.

"No way!" gaped O'Keefe, then he cracked a big grin. "Ha! Ha! Ha!"

He just couldn't help himself.

"Yeah, that sounds like Brubaker," he nodded.

"Tell me more...please!" he gasped, in between small convulsions of chuckles and giggles. "If it wasn't for bad luck; that guy wouldn't have no luck at all."

Purvis nodded.

"Yeah. Well. It would seem he found a spoor or something."

"A what?" gasped O'Keefe.

Purvis reddened. Perhaps he misunderstood the word? But he had full confidence in his vocabulary. He was an award-winning writer, for Christ's sakes.

"He's not talking to the cops. He's protecting someone else! He found a big lump of bones and stuff that the cat shit out. Like, ah; maybe a hairball? Brubaker says it's too big to come out of its ass."

The story gushed out. Unbelievable. Too good to be true!

Brubaker was, 'protecting his sources,' bleedin' hilarious!

Purvis, as much as he disliked Brubaker, couldn't help but laugh too.

"He's telling the Aronka OPP stuff like, 'I scooped them bastards.' I mean, he's nuts..."

Ignoring the basic contradiction—if Brubaker wasn't cooperating, how did Purvis know all this? But O'Keefe sat chewing on the story. Les laid it all out. Apparently, according to Sergeant Oberon over at the Lennox municipal police station; a motorist driving by on a certain bridge saw two men unloading a canoe from a minivan roof.

One of them had a bow and a quiver full of arrows. Putting two and two together, he phoned the police. The OPP drove by and got the license number. But, busy with higher priority calls, they simply couldn't sit and wait it out.

When they received an anonymous call, and found a package in a phone booth, the provincial cops started putting two and two together.

"So; he's not cooperating with the coppers?" Bill asked. "And we haven't seen any letters, or any of those half-baked stories from him in some time?"

Purvis just shook his head.

"Be happy," he advised.

But Bill shook his head as well.

"What the hell is he up to?" he murmured. "Don't forget this is the guy who tried to overthrow the mayor...by post. Remember?"

Purvis just grunted.

"And strange as it may sound, we've gotten a lot of story ideas," O'Keefe noted with emphasis. "From crazy old Brubaker."

Brubaker raised a lot of issues in the course of a typical day. At least when he was talking to you. There were one or two long gaps, as he recalled.

"Crazy enough, it just might have worked," joshed Schwartzie from her cubicle.

The two men chuckled.

"What are you working on?" asked Purvis, slipping back into the deferential mode he affected to the older, more mature members of the editorial staff.

"I'm just finishing up Scow's closure plan," he said.

Bill considered another cup of cold, rancid and bitter coffee. But no; better to finish this up and get out of the building, and go somewhere the stuff was half decent. Purvis sat staring at Schwartzie's ass as she leaned forward in the chair to make a note on her calendar, hanging on the cubicle wall. O'Keefe noticed without really thinking about it.

Purvis was licking his lips and couldn't seem to tear his eyes away from Schwartzie. You learned to accept it after a while. After seven months here at the Guardian-Standard, Les still hadn't gotten over it.

Schwartzie wasn't cold or frigid, O'Keefe assumed. She was a pro, and that meant, among other things; not to go out with fellow employees. Bill O'Keefe knew that for a fact. Only a year ago...no, almost two years ago, when he'd been having some problems with the wife; well. The same old problem, really...he tried her out at the Christmas party.

She'd set him down, but fairly gently. But then, Bill could take 'no' for an answer—he'd been hearing 'no' from Molly for over twenty years now—and they'd become better friends. A shared understanding, or perhaps misunderstanding.

Schwartzie was very moody lately. Maybe something to do with all the doctor's appointments? They all knew better than to ask. Schwartzie had shared something with Bill, something personal.

'I know you're lonely Bill, and I know why. I'm lonely too. But it can never be,' Schwartzie told him, patting him on the back of the hand.

Deep in his heart, Bill accepted it. He knew it was true; and he also accepted that it was just the booze talking anyhow. A momentary desperation ploy. Bill was pretty grateful to Schwartzie for not making a big thing of it. No puns intended; but thank God Schwartzie hadn't made a big thing out of it. Bill was in debt up to his eyeballs. He would have to contend with Molly, and his two daughters and four sons for the rest of his life.

It was the price of being a good Catholic.

"What's with this guy, anyway?" asked Les. "Why does he have to be such an over-achiever? Why can't he just sleep until noon, drink beer and watch big-screen TV?

There's all kinds of sports on, all day long."

"I don't know. I met him once, you know. He came in and introduced himself, and gave me some crazy story which I can't remember. Something about Indians, I guess. If Lance Armstrong fell and broke his back, how would he have ended up?"

Schwartzie poked her head up over the partition. "If Donald Trump were a homeless person, he might talk a little bit like Brubaker."

Les thought for half a moment, and then piped up.

"If Tony Robbins was a street person, he might think and act like Brubaker, who obviously has delusions of grandeur," figured Purvis.

"So he gave you a story?" Schwartzie broke in again. "But you don't remember what it was about?"

"The only thing that stands out about him as a writer, is that he's awfully tall," Bill was misquoting one of his favourite authors.

Chuckles all around; but it was time to get back to work.

"You just have to accept that Brubaker is Brubaker," he said inconsequentially to Purvis.

Les wasn't such a dickhead once you got to know his basic insecurities.

He was a 23-year old kid, a long way from home and with a big student loan to pay off. You had to cut the man a little slack. At least he could write. Eminently pliable, the cops liked him well enough. Bill had seen worse cannon fodder coming down the pipeline.

Scow closure includes demolition, cleanup and landscaping...

Don Phybes, 'can't go anywhere' without being asked about the Scow closure.

He was appointed site director of operations specifically to close the facility.

"Retirees, current employees and members of the public are asking how the company will end its sixty-seven-year history in the community. It's stressful for the community and stressful for the employees. So; we want to assure safety and responsibility to the environment are at the forefront of everything we do."

Phybes was addressing members of the Kahunas Klub last Saturday night in the Lennox Hotel Ballroom.

"Employees have personal experiences; and they're concerned about how the site will be left," he said. "Each employee has a personal stake in the discussion, and they know what their options are."

"At one time Scow had nineteen units, our corporate head office, and more than 2,700 employees in the Lennox area. Having decommissioned those units, and now being down to one, we have a great deal of experience," he added. "We've cleaned up as we went along. There are no surprises yet."

According to Phybes, "Once operations cease, the equipment and buildings will be cleaned and left free of chemical contamination. Demolition of everything above ground then takes place, followed by soil remediation on the main 560-acre site on River Street."

The company also owns 2,000 acres that straddle Highway 47B in the vicinity of Tonti Road. That land won't be decommissioned. Home to the company's hydrocarbon wells, these underground caverns will continue to store butane and propane, according to Phybes.

"Scow hopes to sell them separately from the main waterfront property," said Phybes.

By 2011, when the main site is completely cleaned up, it will be, 'naturalized,' with trees and grasses.

"Tree planting is part of the soil remediation process," he said. "Scow has a very comprehensive public relations strategy in place to keep the community informed."

According to public relations officer Bambi Beauderriere, "After all these years, you can't just pull up stakes and disappear. We have lots of retirees here. Many employees will continue to work here. There are lots of questions and we don't want any mysteries."

Meanwhile the company's Legacy Project committee intends to select a recipient of the $1 million grant in the new year.

— Bill O'Keefe

Chapter Twenty-Six

Cougar sighting reported...

Watfish—The sighting of a large cat-like creature has sparked speculation anew that a cougar may be lurking in eastern Lennox County.

Puckhill resident Jacques Cornwallis was driving to the village of Watfish North shortly after one p.m. yesterday when he nearly ran over the animal.

"It was a big cat. It was huge. It was yellowish-orange and it darted right out in front of me," he said. "The cat moved from ditch to ditch along Macdonald Line just east of Third School Road. It definitely wasn't a dog. It looked to be at least thirty kilos. It had paws and a big head. This was no barn cat."

"I really thought it over, as to what I should do," he explained in an interview with the Guardian-Standard. "I thought people would laugh. I figured they just wouldn't believe it."

Aronka OPP had an officer scour the surrounding area, but saw no animal. Constable Doug Griffiths said police take such reports seriously after a horse was reportedly mauled by an animal with sharp claws, consistent with a cougar attack.

"After that encounter; we're advising residents to stay indoors at night and lock their barns," said Griffiths. "This sighting may be closely related to the horse mauling."

"Wildlife experts say it's possible that remnant populations of the elusive cat, also known as a mountain lion, could still exist in remote areas of Ontario," according to Constable Griffiths.

John Fredrickson, a Ministry of Natural Resources fish and wildlife specialist agreed.

"It always seems that once there's one cougar sighting, suddenly there's lots of cougar sightings. In fact, the injured horse may have run into barbed wire while running, and panicked, mauling itself," according to Frederickson.

He adds that cougars confirmed in the Niagara area and in Kenora by the analysis of droppings, were believed to be escapees from zoos or released exotic pets.

"But around here, we haven't been able to confirm if any of the sightings are legitimate," he concluded.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The funking Wagnall's New Closet Encyclopedia...

According to the Funking Wagner's New Closet Encyclopedia—the damned thing, dating back to 1986, was simply too big to keep anywhere else:

The Puma, also cougar or mountain lion, Felis (or Puma) Concolor, is a large member of the cat family, Felidae.

The puma is found from British Columbia to Patagonia. Its body can be 1.8 metres, (six feet,) exclusive of the long tail. The thick fur is yellowish-red above, lighter on the sides and reddish-white on the belly. The chin, muzzle, throat, breast and insides of the legs are whitish. The head is relatively small, with a black spot above each eye.

Females have one to six young in a litter. The young are spotted on the back with rings on the tail. Pumas subsist on small game animals, including deer. They hunt mostly at night. Because farmers suspect them of killing cattle, the animals have either been totally exterminated or are endangered throughout their range.

The books containing entries for 'mountain lion,' and 'cougar,' said, 'see Puma or Leopard,' so now he checked the entry for leopard. This proved largely irrelevant, as the leopard lived in Africa and Asia. Still, he read it carefully, as the behaviour was what he wanted.

'The leopard is an agile climber and will often stalk monkeys in the trees, or it will lie in wait on a limb and wait for some terrestrial animal to pass. It hunts mainly at night."

'Good swimmers...etc, etc, etc...'

"Uh, huh. Uh, huh," murmured Bru as he read. "When larger game is scarce, a leopard will eat mice, fruit, porcupines, baboons or crocodiles."

What kind of a fuckin' cat eats crocodiles?

"Holy shit!"

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The hot dog bandit strikes again...

"Argh," Bru growled between tightly clenched teeth.

It was his turn to cook.

Bru was a good cook. He prepared healthy, balanced and nutritious meals that were attractive to the eye and not too hard on the palate. Only one problem. Lately, over the past seven or eight years, he was becoming as clumsy as an ox. Did Parkinson's have some kind of genetic component? The experts said no; 'although there might be environmental factors.'

"Whump! Clunk!"

Cans fell out of the cupboard and onto the counter top, and hence onto his foot, which hurt like hell. Several objects landed on the floor, which was never clean. The dust bunnies under the edge of the cupboard were suddenly revealed as he bent to pick it all up. Charles sometimes growled like a dog; when cooking commenced. Considering that tonight it was that terrible twosome, hot dogs and chili, it shouldn't be all that complex.

"What's going on in there?" called his pop from the living room, where Frew Cobbs was all wrought up about how the terrible wild fires in California impacted the illegal aliens getting driver's licenses and port safety and recalls on dangerous Chinese-built Barbie dolls.

And how that impacted the illegal aliens getting driver's licenses and Chinese-built unsafe foods; which weren't picked by illegal immigrants in California, Texas, etc, and therefore was killing American ingenuity. Or so Bru interpreted Cobbs' rather incoherent message. The man was a one-man band, with one instrument, one song, one note. He had one mode of timing, one key, one pitch. Cobbs was a simple; humble; uncomplicated man; speaking out about the plight of the poor and downtrodden capitalist-aristocrats of Wall Street.

"A bad business all around," Cobbs was saying.

"Aw, for fuck's sakes!" howled Brubaker from the kitchen.

"How many times? How many times?" he moaned.

Then came the unwelcome creaking of Big Frank's chair as he got up to go and investigate.

"What's the problem, son?" he began to elucidate. "Do you want me to chop the onions?"

Wouldn't want the boy to slice a finger off, eh?

"The hot dog bandit has struck again," said Bru in a cold fury. "God-damn it all to hell."

Big Frank was mystified, although Bru knew damned well he told the old guy about it before. Several times. The man simply couldn't remember. Leave it at that.

"What?" Frank asked in confusion. "The hot dog bandit?"

"I told you about the hot dog bandit," griped Bru.

I promised myself I wasn't going to do this again.

He took a deep breath and calmed down.

He thoughtfully pushed a jar of pickles back a couple of inches from the edge of the counter. Big Frank's belly was hovering just a little too close.

"There's a guy, probably a white male, who pinches the hot dog buns, and the hamburger buns. Last week, when you said that I 'handled the bread a little roughly,' that was him. This guy thinks he's intelligent, but he's not doin' too good in life. He's lashing out at a system that he perceives as unjust, due to an inequitable distribution of resources. The individual in question feels an inflated sense of his own importance, and can't figure out why the world has ignored his brilliance. A marginalized person, maybe a handyman, the kind of guy who wears a ball cap in the shower."

Frank Brubaker just stood there vacantly staring, with his mouth slightly open.

"This guy could inspire copycats. That's why I've never written a letter to the editor about it. One day he'll escalate. Like maybe start taking the lid off the peanut butter jars, poking his finger down through the seal and scooping out a bloody great gob of peanut butter and then standing there, eating it right there in the aisle, stuff like that."

His old man stared at him like he was mad.

"I'm telling you, this guy is sick," Bru added in some desperation.

"Psychologically, it rings true. The guy probably works on the delivery truck. He works at the grocery store, I don't know," stammered Bru. "This happens every week, every fucking week. No one ever does nothing about it. Surely someone else has complained? Argh!"

Finally it all petered out. He just shrugged his shoulders, hanging his head in shame and violation.

"It could be a customer, but people don't poke holes in the fuckin' watermelons, right?"

His old man's tongue was going in and out, in and out, in and out.

"Fuck," said Bru in sheer disgust. "There was this guy, years ago. He got a thing for the hydro company. He was going around with a hammer and banging nails into hydro poles. They put him away for a while."

His father's tongue went in and out, in and out, his breath went, hyou, hyou, hyou...

"You don't believe me, do you?" muttered Bru.

Big Frank began to clear his throat, a horrendous sound that went on for half a minute.

"But that won't cause a short circuit or an electrical outage," he pointed out.

"Try telling that to the cops," grated Bru. "Or the loonie guy!"

His old man turned and went out without another word. Bru preferred the Vonder Bred Bunz from a local variety store. They were bigger, fresher, and denser bread, not all air inside. Since the old man's diabetes set in, they always ate brown bread. White bread was a kind of treat for Bru, and some ignorant little prick had just spoiled it.

"Ah, hell. It's mind over matter. If I don't mind, it don't fuckin' matter," he decided.

A bowl of hot chili and a trio of barbecued hot dogs soon restored his equilibrium, all washed down with diet, no-name ginger ale. A little watery, but you could get three two-litre bottles for two bucks when it was on sale. There was no danger of it becoming addictive.

***

"Tell me about the lost cabin," Chuck began, with his pop sitting beside him.

They didn't smoke upstairs for some reason. He once asked the old man about that.

"It saves on the re-painting," was the answer.

Unbelievable.

Frank Brubaker hadn't painted anything inside that house for over thirty-five years!

His old man quit smoking after his third heart attack and seemed resolved to bum them from Bru for the rest of his life. He chipped in with a ten-dollar bill often enough. Bru couldn't complain about the money. It was the routine that drove one mad. You could set your watch by the old man coming home from his walk. Then he would stand at the top of the stairs, and call out as if into a great, vast void, a fucking cavern.

"Chuck! Are you down there?"

Where the fuck else would he be?

Chuck's bedroom was their smoking room, another sore point.

"What lost cabin?" asked Big Frank, puffing on a Player's Smooth.

"Remember? You told me about a lost cabin up by the Scout camp, on the other side of the river."

The piece of land in question fronted on Lake Kandechio to the north, the right bank of the Shashawanaga Cut on the west, and The Pines Provincial Park on the east. The Scout camp was 'behind' it on the south-south west side. The river went winding along from east to west, issuing from The Pines and draining into 'The Cut,' which was a by-pass; a flood-prevention canal intersecting the river.

"Ah! Some of the older scouts told us about it. We swam the river and went looking for it, but we never found it," said Frank. "It was supposedly left there by a French fur trapper or someone. They said it was all big, rough-hewn old timbers, rotting into the ground."

The old man went into a time-trip for a moment.

"Back then the scouts were all seventeen or eighteen years old. Not like the little puddle-jumpers they have now," he added. "There was a story in a book, about some guy who survived the Battle of the River Raisin. But who knows where he ended up."

Chuck was familiar with the story. The battle was just south of Detroit. A group of widowed native women, their own men-folk killed in the battle; nursed the wounded white soldier back to health. According to the author, they loaded him up on a travois and then carted him off into the wilderness. It was as likely an explanation as any other. A kind of shotgun wedding, he surmised.

"Vikings seem unlikely," noted the son.

"There's some mail for you," advised Big Frank.

"What the hell's all this?" then recognition dawned.

He gingerly picked it up and took it into his little office area. They either sent all his stuff back to him or...holy shit! A copy of a local quarterly, a cheque for fifty bucks and an invitation to their Christmas party!

It was the first story Brubaker had ever sold! The first money he ever made from his writing since November 1984! What was the world coming to? Still, it felt pretty good. Another envelope; and this one was ominously from the local ODSP office. But it was for the Yule Glow, which meant it would be about the fourteenth year in a row so far for a food hamper.

Insofar as certain OPP officers and remarks about beer stores and canoeing went, 'man does not live by canned goods and dried-up, day-old bread alone.'

At least that's the way Chuck saw things.

"This is no social crisis...just another tricky day for you," sang the man on the radio.

Chapter Twenty

Radioactive waste found in landfills...

TCNS — Alarm bells are ringing as radioactive waste is detected in an increasing number of Canadian landfill sites. Last year, alarms were sounded one hundred nineteen times, as opposed to only thirteen in 2009 and just three the previous year. The report comes from the Federal Nuclear Safety Commission.

Over seventy-five percent of the alarms were triggered by small quantities of short-lived radioactive isotopes from the medical industry. These substances pose 'little or no risk,' in the majority of cases. The report gave no data on the remainder. In documents obtained by The Canadian News Service, it was found that several radioactive devices wound up in landfills, or in the hands of scrap metal dealers. This, 'highlights the growing concern,' about disposal of hazardous nuclear waste. It raises questions about gaps in the hodge-podge patchwork quilt of systems at landfills nationwide that monitor and detect such types of waste from hospitals, laboratories, and industrial plants.

There is no way to tell how much radioactive waste ends up in Canadian landfills. It is unknown whether it gets there by accident or otherwise. In several provinces, there are no regulations requiring radiation detection devices at landfills or transfer stations, where truckloads of waste are stored before dispatch to a landfill or recycler. Quebec is presently implementing plans to have legal guidelines in place. This was originally targeted for January 2009.

"The gaps in the system are symptomatic of a hit-or-miss regime. The low-level radioactive waste that can legally be dumped might set off an alarm, while a genuinely dangerous device might go undetected," according to sources.

One southern Ontario landfill operator suggested it might be easy to get around the monitors.

"Supposedly, if you have any radiation stuff, what you're supposed to do, (and you didn't hear this from me,) is take it somewhere else and dump it," said the unidentified owner. "Dump it in some other place that doesn't have the detection devices because they don't want to deal with it."

In February 2008 a gas chromatograph containing radioactive nickel went missing from the University of Saskatchewan's neuropsychiatric unit. It was sent to a scrap dealer, who dispatched it to a Saskatchewan landfill. The radioactive source was considered low-risk, in no danger of leakage, and covered in layers of other landfill debris, according to university radiation safety officer Petisha Pratt.

She would have, 'gone to the landfill and dug' for it, 'if she had known it was missing.'

"There were no health consequences; so we didn't worry," she said.

A radioactivity monitoring device sounded at a landfill site in Ile des Chats, Manitoba in June, 2009. Investigation revealed a load of trash that came from St. Bonaventure General Hospital. Checks revealed that a device containing radioactive barium was missing. The item was retrieved and subsequently returned to hospital authorities. — Staff Writers

Local environmental summit planned...

The Community Round Table is planning an environmental summit in order to get 'ideas and solutions' on environmental sustainability. This happens Nov. 10 at Lennox College, beginning at 8:30 a.m.. The forum will be a platform to discuss what Lennox residents can do to help protect our habitat.

"This is a great opportunity for citizens," says committee chairperson Alyssa Sakalalavic. "Let's see what we can do collectively in the community to improve the environment, and what we can do together to send a message that we're concerned about it."

The event follows a community summit held last year. Discussions begin with some opening remarks, after which community members will break off into groups to discuss topics including the natural environment, energy conservation, garbage and recycling programs, and other issues involving water and air.

"People will be able to choose which of the sessions they would like to go into," says Sakalalavic. "Then they can brainstorm possible strategies. Little things people can do to help."

"Everyone from elementary age schoolchildren to senior citizens are invited, and encouraged to attend," she said.

On the evening prior to the summit, the roundtable will present Leonardo DiCaprio's 'The Eleventh Hour.' The film examines how human activities affect the environment, the way people live, and what can be done to change negative environmental impacts. With more than fifty environmental experts, world leaders and activists interviewed, Ms. Sakalalavic says it should help to generate ideas for the Saturday summit. The film will be presented at the Lennox Library auditorium at 7 p.m. Friday.

— Les Purvis

***

"Huh! I should go to that summit and tell them the cougars are really just barn cats that drank from a radioactive puddle, and what with the isolation, and, ah; a little too much inbreeding."

His old man chuckled. Bru grinned at the concept of radioactive pussycats, big enough to eat a horse.

"These are the dingbats who're suggesting that we should brush our teeth in a glass of water," said Chuck. "They're saying we shouldn't flush our toilets. 'If its yellow, let it mellow, if it's brown, flush it down.' The dummies figure that way the rich can keep their yachts, the assholes can keep their Hummers, and the government can keep sucking the cocks of the big corporations."

He thought for a moment.

"I should go to that summit and tell everyone to buy a hemp wallet," he grumbled. "A hemp fucking shopping bag, and that way, Chemical Alley will be able to keep pumping out the filth and the plastic shopping bags for years to come."

Brubaker despised the official line, that 'if everyone except us made a few little changes,' yet recently it was announced that the province had met its target of a reduction in electricity demand. He figured it was because the working poor got cut off due to non-payment of bills. People like his brother's family in London. Sometimes they went eight months without hot water, using candles to light the place. He had no idea how they cooked when the hydro was cut off. His little nephews were five and eight years old, and there was his step-niece Magpie, fifteen just this month. Willy and Sue worked their asses off, and could never catch up, let alone get ahead. At some point they missed a payment on the auto insurance...insurance yanked...picked up in a speed trap, Sue got a $5,000 fine.

They were well and truly fucked now, eh?

"It just doesn't bear thinking about," he told Butt Plug, who had the annoying habit of jumping up on the kitchen table and plopping his ass down right in the middle of the page you were reading.

"Meow?" inquired the cat, purring and rolling around on his back.

"Shoo, you little cocksucker," said Bru in a passable impression of Mike Smith, the 'Bubbles,' of the infamous 'Trailer Park Boys'.

"Get outa here, you little motherfucker."

In the next room Big Frank just shook his head. Finally the cat allowed himself to be persuaded to leave.

Will Smith was yelling in his puppy-dog whine. The movie 'I, Robot,' was playing. It was based on a book by one of Brubaker's favourite authors, Isaac Asimov.

"Why do robots always have to talk so gay?" asked the old man.

"It's part of the scariness. That way you know they're truly evil," suggested Bru. "Just wait until some aliens come down and try to anally probe them guys. Then the sparks will fly."

The phone rang and Brubaker picked it up.

"This is Sergeant Oberon of Lennox Police Services. May I please speak with Mister Charles Henry Brubaker?"

"Aw, fuck," said Bru.

"We're sending a car around for you, Bru. We just want to ask a few questions. You're better off to cooperate," and then the sergeant abruptly hung up.

At that exact moment, a pounding came loud and insistent at the front door, so Bru didn't get to call his lawyer or anything.

"Don't answer that," he told the elder Brubaker. "I have to go change my socks."

Then he nipped downstairs on a hunch, and quickly put fresh batteries in his slender, pocket-sized tape recorder. He slipped it into his waistband on an angle; with the microphone part up near the right hip. A quick swatch of duct tape, four inches long for security. He knew the controls by feel. A man can only take so much. As the Boy Scouts say, 'Be prepared.'

Chapter Thirty

The obligatory police interrogation scene...

"Why did you kill him, Chuck?" asked the sergeant for the third time.

For the third time Brubaker asked the sergeant, "Who did I kill?"

His guts churned inside, but why tell them that? Fuck 'em. These people were fucking idiots. They honestly believed he was a killer! Frightening. But he was extremely angry as well.

Across the table sat Sergeant Phillip Oberon, with his shaven head, the ear ring, the little goatee like Howie Mandel. The man must have been on his days off or in court that day. He sat across from Brubaker in a hideous sport jacket, the biggest, loudest, most shit-brown and piss-yellow plaid Chuck had ever seen.

"Somewhere in the world a '73 Volkswagon Super Beetle is missing its seat-covers," he told Oberon's companion, a semi-attractive female cop, with a little blonde pony tail hanging out of the back of her hat and thin wisps of hair falling out from under it.

"This isn't getting us anywhere," said the sergeant, with a hint of pink up high on his cheekbones, brow darkening with outrage.

"No it isn't," agreed Bru. "C'mon, Sarge. Who did I kill?"

The sergeant flushed.

"You know very well," he retorted.

"Do you have a specific complaint? Could you type up my confession for me? So that I could at least read it before you fuckin' dingbats break all my fingers?"

"There's no need to be so rude, Mr. Brubaker," said the blue-eyed cop-woman seated at Oberon's side. "Simply answer our questions, and it will go easier for you. We'll put in a good word with the judge."

Bru couldn't help himself. He just started laughing with a kind of sick delight in his heart. It was like his greatest nightmare, and his best dream come true; a kind of horror.

He might as well enjoy it. If you're going to be eaten by a bear, at least you get to watch. His face was all tight around the eyes. It was like his face wanted to jump off and go after them. His jaw ground back and forth.

There was just no way to control his demeanour.

In life, all of our worst nightmares come true.

He didn't remember who said it, but it was true. He was being accused of something, after all.

"Who did I allegedly kill?" he asked again.

Sooner or later Oberon had to go for dinner, or cover for someone's coffee break. At some point they had to have a shift change. Oberon had to shit or get off the pot.

"Why did you kill him? What did you do to the body?" asked the sergeant patiently.

"I made bouillabaise. That's a kind of soup. Marvelous with a Merlot," quipped Bru, looking at the girl, in conscious parody of a commercial for Bradley Smokers. "You from around here?"

He watched Oberon write it down.

"Why did you kill Professor Pakenham?" she finally said it.

The woman-cop blurted it out, yet Bru could see just the tiniest approving nod from Oberon. She was some kind of protégé, and he, ah; promised to help her through the exams or something. Bru could see the relationship; all laid out like a condiments tray. The shocking revelation took a while to sink in; yet he heard them. Never before in his entire life had he ever wanted to kill someone so bad.

Can't tell 'em that.

The sergeant explained further.

"With your history of violence, and your history of mental illness, including a persecution complex, what with being all paranoid and delusional; we have to make certain types of assumptions," the sergeant was explaining earnestly in a friendly, and non-judgmental fashion, and Bru just sat there drinking it all in. "You fit the profile."

Bru sat there in a kind of haze.

It was a kind of out-of-body experience. He had no criminal record. His, 'mental illness,' was a bogus construct of the police system, from when LaSally accused him of taking his picture. Bru had no history of violence.

What a piece of shit.

"I have a question for you, Sarge. Did LaSally actually have a signed landscaping contract with Zedco? Snowplowing, salting the sidewalks, looking after the planter boxes, that sort of thing?"

"Who? What do you mean?" asked the sergeant. "That's ancient history."

"Not to me it ain't. Look. The man honestly believed I took his picture. Okay, I can accept that." said Bru. "But why did he get so upset?"

"How would I know?" retorted Oberon. "He said you were bothering him. He made a big long video statement saying he was afraid for his family."

"You withdrew that charge five minutes before court time. You knew it was bullshit," Bru told him. "All you really wanted was for me to sign that bail agreement, sign that 'Bond at Common Law.' Then your no-good, sorry, corrupt ass is covered, and your fucking school buddy got everything he wanted. You took my fucking house, Oberon"

"We have a complaints process," oozed Oberon smoothly and with a kind of been-here-before imperturbability, an urbanity that Bru badly wanted to wipe off his face.

"You are the biggest asshole it has ever been my displeasure to meet," said Bru. "You're all fucking dirty, and I want you fucking pieces of shit out of my town."

Big gobs of sweat were rolling down from his armpits under his shirt. His hands felt clammy...heart pounding, hard to breathe...he felt dizzy all of a sudden. And Oberon and his sidekick were writing it all down so furiously, so intent upon their dirty little business.

"We're not judging you, Chuck. We'd just like to try and, ah; understand, so that maybe we can prevent some other poor guy from, ah, making the same mistake."

The sergeant's sincerity was sickening.

So much so, that as it all clicked in at once; Bru puked his guts out all over the table- top. Luckily; enough spilled over the edges to get both of their trousers dirty.

Everything had a horrible, disorienting air of unreality about it. His head swam, and sweat popped out around his eyes, and he just puked, and puked, and puked.

"Fuck!" said the sergeant, while the constable was quicker on her feet and only had a couple of specks; which she brushed at disgustedly with a quickly-produced snot-rag.

He wracked and heaved as he tried to draw a shuddering breath into his body.

"Are...are you telling me that lump of bones and stuff was the Professor?"

But Bru was talking to a pair of backs retreating out the open door.

Soon another officer came to the door and beckoned him out. He showed him to a bathroom and watched him wash his face and get a drink of water. Then he put Bru into another interrogation room.

"Sorry about all that," apologized Bru. "It came as kind of a delayed shock."

He felt tears sting his eyes, and didn't care what these bastards thought.

"Just so you cocksuckers know, the Professor was a friend of mine," he told the new cop.

"That's the wrong attitude, buddy," said the officer menacingly.

"Like fucking hell it is," said Bru.

"You lip off to the Sarge again, or swear in the presence of a lady, I'll personally take you out in the boonies and give you a beatin' you'll never forget," the cop growled at Bru.

"Okay! You'd better get them back in here then," Chuck growled right back without hesitation. "I'm looking forward to this, you little piss-ant."

The cop just scowled and Bru laughed in his face. The cop blanched at the smell, and backed off. Right then the door opened and Sergeant Oberon stuck his head in.

"I'll take it from here, Jack," he said confidently.

The big bruiser, probably a hundred-fifty kilos, with a shaven head and wearing heavily-stitched black driving gloves, departed with a mean glance over his shoulder at Bru. Bru had seen the type before. Easy meat.

"See you around, you fat fucking fall-down faggot," he called after him. "So the rumour going around about the Glove Patrol is true then."

Thus commented Bru to the sergeant, who just nodded! Oberon and the constable took their seats again.

"We've got it all down, Bru. There's no sense in struggling. You'll just make it worse for yourself," said the chick-cop, Constable Grunion.

"We don't know everything, of course. Was there something between you and the professor? Something sexual?" she asked with a delicious tremor.

She must have been totally unconscious of it.

"What else did I do?" asked Bru in resignation.

Sooner or later, this had to end.

"Where did you rent the wood-chipper?" she asked. "We can find out where you bought the acid...and whose trash compactor you used...we got you dead to rights."

She told him all this with a charming smile, and a kind of verbal flourish. She shoved a document across the table.

"Do you have a pen?" he asked, and they looked at each other for a moment in sheer triumph.

He took the proffered confession and signed and carefully dated it after consultation.

Charles knew it was a Thursday, but wasn't too sure of the exact date. Then he pushed it back to them. Right about then the phone rang urgently. Phil Oberon snatched it up.

"We got 'im!" he exulted gleefully. "Almost too easy...what?"

Then the poor sergeant's world came crashing in. He got up and walked out and left the door open, with the phone laying on the desk.

The constable picked it up and said, "Hello?"

She listened intently for a couple of minutes, and so did Bru, because she didn't know he had especially acute hearing, what with being a mutant and all.

"Yes, sir," she said in finality.

With a deep sigh, she placed the phone back in its cradle.

"I'll take you home now, Mr. Brubaker," she told Chuck, unable to make eye contact.

"Thank you constable," he said; very, very gently. "I guess the DNA stuff wasn't human after all? The juice?"

He went for the confession, but she snatched it out of his hand angrily. He didn't press the issue. What a souvenir it would have made. He did try to tell them. But, some people just don't listen.

***

"Tell you what, ma'am," said Bru. "We still don't know what happened to Hilier. We still don't have nothing from that old lady that went for a walk? Right? Then there's that kid."

She opened up the cruiser door and held it for him.

"Just a scrap of the old girl's nightgown, right?" Bru prodded.

She climbed in the other side.

"If I get anything, I'll let you know," he promised. "Like when I'm out riding my bike and stuff."

He thought for a half a moment.

"My impression of that lump, is that it's like an owl-cast, not exactly the same as a fur-ball or hairball. I suppose it could have come out of something's ass."

"Thank you, Mr. Brubaker," she said quietly.

Chuck decided to go easy on her, and the rest of the ride home was silent.

She pulled up into his driveway and looked at him sideways for a moment.

"You must really hate us, Mr. Brubaker," she said resignedly.

"It's not your fault. It goes back a few years."

A gesture of kindness, or at least; the best he could do.

There was nothing to say.

"Why would anyone ever want to hate a Lennox cop?" he asked to the profound silence.

She had no answer.

"Just so you know," he told her, eye to eye. "I don't know what happened to those people, and all we really have is a foot and a lump of bones. And the professor was a good man."

***

Thank God, but they never even asked about his van insurance! Fuckin' dummies.

Neither had the OPP, for that matter.

He stood in the driveway and watched her drive off up the street. Then he went into the house to brush his teeth and have a cup of tea. A person has to eat, at least once in a while. And for some crazy reason, in that intuitive Brubaker fashion, he had the feeling that he had most, if not all the clues. The word 'axolotl' buzzed around in his head. Why, and for what reason he simply didn't know. Yet. But it would come; probably at two-damned-thirty a.m. That was just the way the gift worked sometimes.

You learned to live with it.

***

Upon later review, Chuck discovered that his audio recording was brilliant. Clean, sparkling, digital sound, good volume, voices clearly distinct and recognizable. Just fucking brilliant. The only problem was, what the hell was he supposed to do with it? He found himself totally stymied by that question, which was a little bit unusual for him.

Chapter Thirty-One

The subconscious mind is a wonderful thing, but...

The subconscious mind is a wonderful thing, but it does more than just give us our dreams, or at another level, regulate our heart, and our breathing.

It also wakes us up in the middle of the night with the word, 'axolotl,' stuck in our conscious mind, whether we're really interested or not.

Bru got up and put the kettle on, and while waiting for it to boil, he had a quick piss.

After that he made a pot of strong tea.

The bathroom was looking pretty grubby, so he took the spray cleaner and spent some time polishing the sink and the toilet. When that was done, it smelled a little fresher in there. He took a moment further to polish up the spotted old mirror, and used his damp washcloth to wipe up the specks of toothpaste from the floor around the sink. His old man sure wasn't going to clean the bathroom.

He took the old washcloth to the head of the stairs and chucked it into the laundry room. Now his old man could spray a clean toilet when he peed. He puttered around very quietly. The old man's snoring could be heard from a few feet away. His old man never closed the bedroom door anymore. He had his towel hanging over the top of it pretty much all the time. Bru made sure to put fresh hand-towels in place for them both.

'Axolotl.'

In resignation, Bru took his tea down to his office-slash-bedroom, and then went back upstairs to get the relevant volumes of the encyclopedia. The word 'axolotl,' and words like 'mudskipper,' and 'salamander,' danced in his head. On some vague and general principle which he couldn't have articulated, he decided to begin at the back and work forwards. It was just like Fred Barnes told him; the one and only time they ever spoke.

'Your mind tends to jump around a bit.'

'That's my greatest strength, you frickin' dummy.'

***

Salamanders are amphibians of the genus salamandra, and are typical members of the family salamandridiae. They only inhabit water in their tadpole stage; and only return to water to deposit their eggs. They generally live in damp terrain, such as under stones, or at the base of tree trunks. They feed on worms, slugs, snails and other small creatures. In habits they are somewhat sluggish and shy.

The spotted land salamander, S. maculosa, common in Europe, is 15 to 20 cm long, (6 to 8 inches,) and is conspicuous with bright yellow patches on a blackish background.

The black salamander, S. atra, lives in the Alps and is viviparous. Other species are found in Spain, Italy, and in Asia. The genus salamandra is not represented in the U.S., where salamander is the common name erroneously given to members of the order Caudata, including the families Ambystomidae, Cryptobranchidae, Plethodontidae and Proteidae, and other members of the family Salamandridae; see also Axolotl, Hellbender, Mud Puppy, Newt.

***

The creatures Bru and Nibbles had observed were kind of a grey, blue-grey, with a darker mottling. His own recollection was of a massive head, with puny little forearms set well back on the body, and with the hind legs about double the mass of the front. As was often the case in the encyclopedia, there were no pictures of the animals; no tracks or footprints. No description of the feet. No depiction of how it ate. He remembered a long, eel-like tail. Over the course of several long winters, he'd read the thing about four times.

Maybe it was time to invest in a new, CD-based encyclopedia. Where would the money come from? He sighed in some despair whenever he thought of money.

So the little fuckers could live in the Alps?

"Newt," he mused, reaching for the next volume. "Like the little girl in, 'Aliens,' the popular film starring Sigourney Weaver."

In the background, the TV softly burbled away. The nice thing about infomercials; is that they're not incessantly interrupted by commercials.

"Ah, here we go," he said. "Newt, eft..."

Eft? What the fuck is an eft? Newts were usually about eight to ten centimetres in length. That didn't jive with what he'd seen. He kept going, checking out the cross-references.

'...at this time the larvae, which are reddish orange with black spots and are known as red efts, leave the water and spend the next few years on land...living under stones and logs in damp, wooded regions...the larva eventually return to water, develop adult coloration, and spend the rest of their lives in an aquatic habitat...'

Apparently they changed from bright red to green at this time.

"Well, that's as interesting as all shit," he said to himself. "But it really doesn't help."

Bru just sat there smoking and drinking tea and wishing like hell he had a joint. But, since he was trying to cut down, he hadn't bought any recently. Quite frankly, the bag ran out with three weeks to go to the end of the month.

Unconsciously, he adopted the pose of a popular detective fiction character, Nero Wolfe. His lips were pursing up, and then going in, and out, and in, and out. Feet up on the left end of his computer desk; book on his lap, Bru was thinking furiously about many things, and about nothing at all.

He had a momentary flashback, from when he was about sixteen. His dad, feeling a little guilty perhaps, about leaving the boys home when he worked night shifts down at the plant, made a point of taking Bru out for a hamburger. Bru guessed he took Willy somewhere in turn. For some reason Big Frank raved about the cheeseburgers in the company cafeteria, and Bru wanted a driving lesson.

To a boy of Bru's age, next came the ultimate humiliation. His old man called it a 'date,' and just wouldn't stop.

Big Frank got the idea he would take the boy for a hamburger at work. It was seven-thirty on a warm summer's evening. Bru was a big lad, about six-foot-four or six-foot-five inches tall by this time, and it was cheap and everything. As Chuck drove down Viaduct Street, over the bridge that crossed the tracks leading to the St. Irene Tunnel; his old man rolled down the window and took a deep breath.

"Smell that! That's the smell of money, son."

A sulphurous, rotten-egg smell permeated the air and fogged up the sky. A yellow haze stained the horizon all around them. Like hot rubber. Tire smoke. After growing up in the Depression and WW II; Big Frank had never wanted anything other than to be a working man. He did very well for himself. You have to admit; the man achieved his goal. Inside of his own head, he was a rich man. Bru smiled at the thought of his dad, who was indeed a pretty fortunate guy, sitting there expounding in the deserted cafeteria.

His dad, with his steel-toed, ankle-length, zip-sided shoes, his blue polyester work pants, the shirt that he was so proud of, where he cut the sleeves off and re-seamed them by hand, the one with paint spots all over it. That home-made vest with shirt-type pockets up high, with their fake pearl buttons, was Big Frank's distinctive trademark.

The way his dad walked into the big, hollow and empty dining hall, probably capable of holding eight hundred people at a weekday lunch hour; invoking his famous line, for which he was known far and wide; 'People of Earth, I bring you greetings,' to the amusement of the cleaning ladies.

They giggled behind the counter as well, looking up at the tall skinny kid, as Big Frank handed them two overtime meal tickets. He saved them up after some sixteen-hour days last weekend.

Bru smiled in fond memory.

He suddenly recalled a girl with long black hair working behind the counter.

"Fuck!"

That was almost thirty years ago.

There was nothing wrong with the long-term memory banks.

But the whole incident said a lot about his old man, that's for sure.

Always in the background of their daily lives, there was that smell. You got used to it, so that you never noticed it except when you went away for a while. Like when you went to visit friends in some other city. On your way home, when you got to within about twenty kilometres of town, the aroma came back, and you recognized the smell of the place. Bru totally understood, that in his old man's mind; that smell said, 'Home.'

'Home is where you pay the bills.'

It was the smell of money.

"Yes. And that smell goes a long way..."

Bru thought and thought and thought.

At last it was time. He got around to the word of the day, 'Axolotl.'

Here we are:

'...common name for the aquatic larval form of the yellow-spotted brown salamander Ambystoma Mexicanum; found in Mexico and the western U.S. Not all axolotls develop into salamanders. Those inhabiting Lakes Chalco and Xochimilco near Mexico City do not metamorphose. They retain their gills, undeveloped legs, and finned tails, and increase in length to about 25 to 30 centimetres, (about 10-12 inches.)'

'They attain sexual maturity in tadpole form. The Mexican axolotls have developed this adaptation under environmental pressure. The surrounding country became too dry and too barren to sustain amphibious animals. The lakes provide cool, well-aerated water, good shelter, and an abundance of insect and small animal life for their food.'

'Until 1865 scientists considered the Mexican axolotls a distinct species; seeing no connection between it and siredon mexicanum, but that year a number of Mexican axolotls on exhibition in an aquarium in Paris lost their gills and changed into regular salamanders.'

Later experimentation proved that adding thyroid extracts to the water induces or hastens metamorphosis of tank-kept Mexican salamanders. Apparently the water in those lakes was iodine-rich.

"Interesting," said Brubaker, no more enlightened than when he set out.

His subconscious mind, with fresh data to chew on, would lead him no further.

Brubaker was a thorough-going type of guy, with a pit-bull tenacity that served him well in his years of feuding with the provincial government. To survive, to persist, to be the last man standing on the battlefield, was the key to victory. He had outlived a couple of Community and Social Services Cabinet Ministers, if truth be told.

'Bastards.'

In lieu of a better source, he went back to the books.

A species of salamander in Japan grows to a length of five feet, one in China to nearly three and a half feet. The hellbender of eastern North America attains a length of two and a half feet. Salamanders have moist skins, five fingers and five toes. Apparently the marbled salamander, dicamptodon ensatus, a species of the Pacific giant salamander; could produce vocal utterances.

"So they talk, do they?" he made a vocal utterance of his own as he read.

'Because of their inability to defend themselves, it is not surprising that some species of salamanders have completely adapted to subterranean caves that contain water. Such cave inhabitants lack pigment in the skin and look white or faintly pinkish. Their eyes are usually degenerate, which is only to be expected of an animal living in total darkness.'

While the salamanders in general had no poison fangs, no sharp teeth or claws, the animal was described as grabbing prey, 'viciously,' and swallowing it, with 'great rapidity.'

Apparently the author fed his pet about once a week.

"So they lay eggs, hatch into tadpoles, go through metamorphosis and then move onto land," muttered Bru, deep in thought. "These guys are so limited, yet as a step in the evolutionary chain...these guys crawled up out of the primeval ooze and they're our common ancestors. Lizards, toads, frogs, snakes, sometimes can re-grow a broken tail, or re-generate a missing limb."

He thought for a while.

"Those salamanders in Mexico, that's not an evolutionary adaptation. It's a temporary, environmental one."

Hmn. Hmn. Hmn...

"One of the reasons for obesity in North America is the growth hormones in the Big Burgers." he told himself. "What if a fuckin' salamander got a good dose of female hormones; or a dose of sudden-growth hormone?"

'Endocrine disruptors.'

The critters might guard the eggs, which were laid in a dark, moist place.

Nowadays, young girls seemed to be developing breasts at a younger age. Or was that just the imagination? They also dressed differently. More young boys with 'man-breasts' these days, was that female hormones in the milk? In the hamburger? When a dairy cow, doped-up its whole life to improve and extend milk production outlived its usefulness, it was sent to the meat packers and turned into hamburger.

He knew all about the beef industry and hamburger. Slippery McCougall once had this insane notion that he could raise beef cattle for hamburger...never have to work, never have to steal, again. According to him, you didn't even need a farm. You just bought calves and took them to a feedlot operator. Slip offered Bru a chance to get in on the ground floor. But Chuck rejected this great and wonderful opportunity, to Slip's derision.

Slip never did it either.

Maybe he was looking for investment capital when he tried to get Chuck involved?

(Another mystery solved. –ed.)

Something that might cause a big cat to avoid a water source, might just cause a full-blown genetic mutation in a bunch of salamander eggs. Something that might lead to cancer, skin problems, or unusual fertility patterns in higher life forms. More fully evolved or advanced forms, more complex forms. It might just cause the salamanders to evolve. To adapt in a big hurry. Say instead of half a million years, how about fifty or a hundred years? And when you considered that barely five to ten percent of forest cover remained, leaving only pockets of habitat, then the animals would tend to be isolated populations. In the agricultural monocultures of Lennox County, higher predators were rare, rumoured-mountain lions notwithstanding. The human body was ninety-eight percent water. So was a fish—but fish live directly in the water, while humans only drank it and bathed in it. Salamander eggs were laid in still, warm, shallow water.

The higher the temperature; the quicker the chemical reaction occurred. He seemed to recall that from somewhere.

'With a little too much inbreeding,' those salamanders might get pretty big, when he took global warming into consideration. They were seeing a longer spring and fall season lately, and milder winters as well. Bru was certainly no scientist, but he was trying to take everything into account. This included his own limited knowledge. While the picture was disturbing, there were too many unknowns. It was still inconclusive.

'The hellbender, Cryptobranchis alleganiensis, is of the order Urodela. Sometimes called the alligator, the water dog or mud puppy. Unlike the true mud puppy which it resembles; it has internal gills and wrinkles on the sides of the body. Reaching a length of 61 cm (24 inches,) the animal is grey or dark brown. Head and body are flattened, and the tail is laterally compressed for swimming. Hellbenders are common in the Ohio River and its tributaries.'

'The female lays up to four hundred eggs under a stone in August or September. In the six weeks before they hatch, she may eat many of them. The male guards the eggs but may also become cannibalistic. The closest relative to the hellbender is the giant salamander, Megalobatrachus japonicus; which can reach a length of five feet and is eaten in the Orient.'

"That's good to know," murmured Bru, mind jumping all over the place. "Huh..."

He sighed deeply, and prepared for a nap.

"We're a couple of hundred miles from the Ohio, but at least they're big enough, and invasive species are nothing new."

Bru lived in a world of pigweed and purple loosestrife, zebra mussels, gobies, and other introduced species. In fact the grass carp, presently infesting the Mississippi River; was expected to break out into the Great Lakes at any minute, in spite of electrified barriers at Chicago designed to prevent it.

So the mystery was solved, at least for tonight.

The television was babbling softly to itself on its stand. He went over and turned up the noise. It was yet another documentary on WW II; 'Dogfights' or something. There was some big fat old lady being interviewed, and then, as if in a time machine; the picture cut and faded to a candid seaside snapshot of her in about 1942.

"Holy frijoles!" murmured Brubaker. "She was really something in her younger days."

He went out and looked up at the stars.

The medium is the message, a little voice said in his brain.

Why me?

Why me?

Why in the hell he of all people was chosen for this, he simply couldn't comprehend.

Brubaker yawned uncontrollably.

Yes, but why fight it?

He turned and headed for bed.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Brubaker had developed 12 simple little exercises...

"If I had known I was going to last this long," Nibbles told Bru. "I would have looked after myself a lot better."

Bru nodded a trifle glumly. After a few workouts, he began to notice little things. Like the fact that his neck ached, and his shoulders hurt when he went for a walk after supper.

The workouts had their unexpected consequences. Both men were pretty determined to stick with it. Nibbles was focused on chest curls with a lot of stretching, but was only doing about five exercises.

Bru might start off with a different one every day, but he tried to do all of them religiously, every second day, and not before forty-eight hours had elapsed. Bru's mom had studied physical education at university and confirmed a few things Nibbles said.

Stuff like, 'globules of lactic acid among the muscle fibres,' et cetera.

Yet even though he knew the theory, it was Nibbles who showed up every day, and wanted to get quick results. Brubaker was committed to the long term. He knew that if he just stuck with it, conceivably till the day he died, he would reap huge health benefits.

Not just big muscles, or a big chest, or big arms. Bru absolutely wouldn't consider food supplements, (they cost money,) and wouldn't do steroids if threatened with death.

Bru hated cheats of any kind. No way. But he figured on avoiding osteoporosis, and a few other things. He didn't care about body-building.

He saw bodybuilding as a sign of insecurity, in the same way that wrestlers appeal to twelve-year old mentalities. It was the idea of 'strength,' the idea of being a 'strong' man. It was an immature response to irrational fears. He didn't need that bullshit. He needed to strengthen his back; to build his aerobic capacity. To lower his resting heart rate and blood pressure. It would help him to use oxygen more effectively; and to lower his blood pressure by blowing off steam. It would relieve stress, and improve self-esteem.

Brubaker wanted to feel better.

Chuck really didn't need to look like Arnold Swartzenegger, or to get back at beach bullies for kicking sand on him. Bru just sat down and wrote a list after some small consultation. Nibbles had spent a lot of time in jail; and therefore knew the weight training thing, somewhat.

"So, Nibbles, I seem to be doing more of them in the same amount of time."

Who ignored him for the most part, as he grunted and groaned his way through yet another set.

"Ugh!" he acknowledged; but who can tell how Bru actually knew it was a response.

"Ugh!" said Nibbles.

Bru hoped the neighbours didn't have their ears up to the wall.

"Ugh!" said Nibbles.

Brubaker just sat there smoking, and thinking about all the weird stuff in his head.

His workout complete, he would leave sooner or later for a five kilometre bike ride.

After supper, he took a two and a half to three kilometre walk in the park.

"Ugh!" said Nibbles.

"Ugh! To you too," murmured Brubaker.

Last winter, Bru walked to the store pretty much every evening after supper. After seven hundred and fifty metres, his right foot would go numb. The ankle would go numb, then the numbness would go up the shin bone. After a while, his foot would flop around like a dead thing on the end of his leg. It wasn't painful or anything, but he was sort of resolved not to apply for jobs driving a propane truck.

"Last night I went for a walk and my foot didn't go numb for, I don't know; maybe about twelve hundred metres," he told Nibbles. "At some point it did go numb, and when I got home the numbness literally went up to my hip bone."

Bru was suffering degenerative disc disease in his back. Also the T-6 vertebral body had a two-point-five centimetre hemangioma, a benign tumour, growing on it. Certain activities, such as pole-sanding drywall, or raking leaves, could cause him a lot of pain from that. Too much stress would occasionally cause a kind of chest-encircling pain that resembled a heart attack, and kept him flat on his back until it passed.

The doctors checked out his heart. There was nothing to find. It was just a mild inflammation of something, impinging on a radial nerve right in between his shoulder blades.

It was fun trying to explain that one to a doctor! Bru learned to be careful. Bru learned that to stand in front of the drawing table would cause his legs to go numb. To sit for too long at a desk made his back hurt. To walk too far caused back pain. To bend and pick up a penny could cause a lumbar spasm that might go on for days or even weeks.

After years of this life, Bru began to experience recurring problems with severe and chronic depression. The man had lost every job he ever had, going back to May 4, 1989, after all. Yet at some point he kicked the pain pills and the tranquillizers, the cocaine, the muscle relaxers, the whiskey. He 'carefully avoided' alcoholism.

He could enjoy a beer once in a while, without having to stay on some wagon for the rest of his life; or watch that life go down the tubes. It was a tough way to live. Bru had never sunk so low as to inject drugs into his veins, and considered himself lucky to have never even seen methamphetamines.

He figured he wasn't missing anything he needed. All he really wanted from life was to be a writer, and maybe even find a girlfriend and a home someday. He wanted to be left alone.

In some ways, reflected Nibbles, as he stretched this way and that, Bru was trying to save the world when he really couldn't even save himself.

Maybe that's why he did it.

"I saw a good one on the news the other day," he told Chuck.

"Really?" Brubaker was only half listening.

Bru was thinking again. You could always tell. He got this faraway look on his face.

"Some wise guy was scoping out a business, somewhere down in Florida, Georgia, or somewhere," said Nibbles as he sat on a steel folding chair for a moment and took a breather.

"He was doing a bacon and eggs and he tripped the alarm. Anyway; the cops were coming, sirens going full tilt, so he ran around behind the building, jumped a couple of fences and hid in the long grass..."

"Oh, no," guffawed Bru. "No!"

"Yep," agreed Nibbles.

"NO!" said Bru while Nibbles just grinned.

"So what happened?" prompted Bru.

"Alligator took off his head, his shoulder and his arm, apparently," came the reply.

"Holy, fucking...Jesus," said Bru. "Man, it's just not worth it. How big was this thing?"

"The TV showed them dragging it out. It looked about fifteen feet long," Nibbles estimated.

"Yeah. They'd cut it open to get the body parts. Give the man a Christian burial," and Nibbles saw that Bru was off into la-la land again.

He got up to begin another set of chest curls.

"The guy must have thought it was a fish farm or something," Nibbles mused aloud.

"Some of them exotic fish are worth the big bucks to a collector. Should have read the sign. Them fuckin' crack-heads! But I heard something funny on the news last night," began Bru.

It was show and tell time. They did it every day. Nibbles knew everyone in town and had all the gossip.

"What's that?" Nibbles asked.

"Lennox is supposedly the most livable town in Ontario," Chuck said with a note of wonder, a kind of disbelief.

The unspoken question hung there.

How bad are all them other places?

How much did they pay the editor to put that in the magazine?

Seated there at his desk, Bru began to feel a million tiny pin pricks all around the central, fleshy part of his back, mostly below the shoulder blades, going down to his buttocks. He got up and began to move around a bit.

"Well, I suppose I'd better go for my ride," he guessed.

It was better than being bored to death. It was better than going down in the basement; turning on the TV and watching sharks eat meat off of a hook. Better than being needled to death by back problems.

"Did you see that thing on TV about bedbugs?" reminded Nibbles. "Holy, shit! They're all over Canada, and when you get 'em you got to fumigate the bed, everything."

Bru sprinkled flea powder on his bed sheets once in a while, after getting a few bites that seemed to itch and burn for up to a week. He woke up with them. The idea of Big Frank or anyone spending money to fumigate this place...hah! It was ludicrous. He made Big Frank buy his cat a flea collar in mid-September. He prayed it was just a couple of strays. Hopefully, they would die off as the season advanced.

Otherwise he'd have to put the bed out by the curb and sleep on the floor.

Well, that's poverty.

That's what it means to be on ODSP.

The catch on his helmet strap clicked in and he mounted up. The side door was held open by a green plastic garbage can.

"See you later," he told his buddy and departed with his bike through the opening thus presented.

Bru had suffered through six or seven weeks of back pain during the months of September and early October. He was starting afresh. The weights seemed to be helping, but he would have to be careful. He planned to go only four or five k's on the bike.

Bru had been saving up again. But; he knew what he wanted and what he had to do to get it. Less than eight blocks later, he dismounted and hung the helmet over the handlebars.

'The Wilderness Guy,' was a little shop on Minton St. Opening the door, he ducked his head to clear the frame and moseyed on in. He knew the guy behind the counter, but hadn't seen him in almost twenty-five years. The black-haired, clean-shaven, middle-aged, blue-eyed man behind the counter looked up, puzzled for a moment.

"Bru! Holy shit, man!"

Bru grinned. This must be Jerry.

The two attended school together at Lennox College.

"Hey," he said, looking around.

The walls were covered in displays of fishing rods, reels, lures, line, but he didn't see any guns or archery equipment. Jerry came around the corner and they shook hands in glee. Grinning like idiots, searching the memory banks for something to say. He remembered the last time they partied at Jerry and Maggie's place out on McGillicuddy Drive. He'd been pretty much engaged, perhaps not officially announced, to marry her.

No pain anymore.

He'd come to terms with it long ago. She was gone. She wasn't coming back.

"What can I do for you?" asked Jerry in delight.

The two men talked about old times for a while, but Bru finally got around to asking about archery.

"I'm looking for a quiver, a wrist guard, and I need a bowstring, although it's been many years. It's a sixty-four inch, sixty-pound draw."

He looked around the four walls again.

"Not selling any guns or bows this year?" he asked.

"No," advised his old friend. "I've been getting a lot of work through my union, but I could make you up a bowstring for twenty-five bucks. I'm not too busy. It might be two or three days."

"Oh, really? My old man used to make bows. And arrows, and strings. Do you have a string? Do you loop the ends and tie them up with thread, around and around?"

Jerry took him into the back room, where coincidentally a black crossbow lay on a table top. He dug around and found an old crossbow string to look at. Jerry's work was fine, certainly more professional than Bru was likely to do the first time out. The end-wrapping was neatly done, and his old man probably couldn't have done much better.

"So what have you been doing?" Brubaker asked.

Hard to sum up the last twenty-five years, Bru realized.

"You remember Maggie?"

Bru nodded.

"Well, she threw me out because of the drinking," Jerry said with a big happy grin.

"Whatever happened to you and...?" Jerry asked.

"I think she married a Lennox cop," admitted Bru with a grimace. "I don't even really know for sure."

"Ooh, that hurts," quipped Jerry. "Maggie's with a fireman now."

And they both laughed.

"You want to know the truth? It's probably for the best," allowed Brubaker, with a shrug. "I was just a big dumb kid at the time."

Jerry just grinned.

"She earned a good man if she can find him," he joked.

"...and the cops probably deserve it..." put in Bru and both men laughed again.

It was amazing how easy it was to reconnect. It was almost like the intervening quarter century didn't exist. But mutually, it didn't. The two men simply picked up where they left off.

"I actually have four bows, three of them made by my old man. I have a couple of dozen arrows he made as well," Bru told his buddy, who was an avid sportsman, judging by the photos on the walls. "Some guy he sold a bow to back in the fifties; he told the old man he shot a moose with it. The smallest one is a real work of art."

"Tell you what," offered Jerry. "I'll make you three strings for forty bucks cash."

"Some hobbies are more expensive than others," noted Bru in a generalized comment to Jerry and for the benefit of the four square walls. "But I'll tell you what. I'll drop off the bows in a couple of days."

Then Bru got on with his day.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Schwartzie...

Schwartzie sat on the end of the bed to dress, feeling the warmth and moisture of the shower evaporating. This brought a delicious little shiver. First it was the panties, all frilly and white, with lace around the legs and waistband. Next, the stockings, then the garter belt, both in black lace, and then; standing, the uplift bra with the top halves cutaway to reveal the state-of-the-art, top-of-the-line, cutting-edge implants. Perfumed and powdered, moisturized and defoliated, Schwartzie's golden skin, maintained by periodic visits to the tanning salon, glowed with a lustrous self-indulgence. Her body was a high-maintenance, high performance machine.

You could cut glass, with those nipples.

Then it was the black leather skirt, and the tube top, and the little vest with cowhide-style colours in brown, black and white. Once things warmed up, whether it was Les or any other male; it could be removed when tactical requirements dictated. This would expose the lovely shoulder blades, the smooth, creamy shoulders, the cleavage where the skirt revealed the top of a pink rose tattooed on her right buttock, just below the dimples caused by slender hips, pert buttocks and proper stretching exercises.

Vests were useful, to remove at the proper time, or better yet to unbutton and make him stretch and peek. It would reveal nipples straining and pushing at the thin, sheer printed fabric of the skimpy little top. Schwartzie looked forward to seeing the look on Les's face, not that it would do him much good. Schwartzie was going to tease the hell out of old Les. That much revenge would seem to be in order. It seemed due after the last few months of his persistent, lecherous, drooling advances.

Then it was the cowboy boots. And the hat, a cute little white Stetson, with a black leather band. The only trouble with the hat was that it ruled out the flower in the hair over the ear. But if Les was looking for trouble, Schwartzie intended to make him sweat, make him pay. Tease the living shit out of him, and then slap him in the face. If necessary. Just not ready for a relationship...yet. And definitely not with Les.

Schwartzie tried not to think of how stupid it was. How stupid it was, to allow Les Purvis to bully, con, browbeat, and finally persuade; that a night out wouldn't hurt once in a while; that they were just good friends and he understood that. But Les was up to no good. That much was obvious. And country-western dancing! Yeesh! Schwartzie was so bored, with this town; its small, peasant-minded folk, how bitter that word seemed on the tongue. Even though the word was quickly bitten back. She was bored of life itself. The thought of asking for another transfer occupied her mind. It would have to wait for at least another six months or it would seem, 'ungrateful.'

"Two and a half years in this place," moaned Schwartzie. "It's so hard to believe!"

The full-length pair of mirrors on the hall sliding closet doors revealed that the little mink still looked good. The coat as well as Schwartzie, 'Yours truly,' as the saying went.

Schwartzie kept a journal. What, oh what, would pen inscribe in there tonight? What scurrilous observations? What delectable tidbits of manners, of talk. What personal secrets would be revealed? His life story?

Oh, God.

Would Les pick his nose and talk about football? Drink himself into a stupor? Was Schwartzie no more than a designated driver? It was difficult to believe that Les would honestly try to transform himself into a different person, or that he would be able to achieve his full adult maturity overnight.

Chapter Thirty-Four

The giant mutant salamanders were on the move...

With the coming of the cold weather, small game, birds and other creatures became harder to find. As the leaves fell off the trees, they collected underfoot, making it difficult to get food by stealth. It was harder to hide, and the warmth of the midday sun did not last long.

Bellies were going hungry, and it was a long time since any of the larger prey animals put in an appearance. As if in some collective decision, the giant mutant salamanders were on the move. While the nights were bitter and frosty, the daylight beckoned. They followed the warmth of the sun as it traveled across the sky. Taking refuge in pools, and ponds, and deepnesses in the creek, they huddled together, seeking warmth in the soft oozing muck of the stream bed. Burrowing down head-first, they huddled together in family groups, and used torn-up water lilies and other weeds as a blanket. Rising only for air, they rode out the frigid, bitter nights.

On a moonless night, they stayed until dawn; but sometimes when the moon was full; they couldn't resist its allure. Confused by its brilliance, bathed in its glare, yet the land remained dark. Eyes grown used to dimness; they relied on smell, and sound, and the very taste of the air around them, to find a warm, living, breathing body to consume.

They could not have told an impartial, objective observer why they were on the move, or how many of them there were, or if there were other groups like this one. All they knew, if they knew anything at all, was that they were hungry. They had to fill their bellies and get fat before the winter's frozen hell descended upon them. It would turn their world into a stillness that they feared without understanding, for it was magic. They knew no other life, no other beings, but themselves. They knew of no other places, but this one.

They did not know about time, and space, and dimension, and if they had; they could have cared less about such false and artificial constructs of theory. They were hungry and they were going to fill their bellies and that was the only thing that had any importance at all to them.

They did not know about the creation. They did not know about good, and evil. They did not know right from wrong. They knew pain, and they knew pleasure.

They knew fear.

They knew safety and threat.

They knew the muck, and the mud and the river bottom. They knew the trees, the bushes and the plants. They knew the animals, the larger, bigger animals that they could eat now that The Change had come, and they could eat them. The whole world was open to them, if only they had the courage to seize it.

Long ago, The Change had been foretold in prophecy, and it had come to pass. It only remained to be seen what the giant mutant salamanders would do with it. And they were strong. They had learned that you cannot reach the sun, no matter how warm and inviting.

They knew that you cannot touch the moon. But there were other lights, and they seemed much closer. They were moving towards the lights. Like the sun in the sky, like the cold dead eye of the moon, the pretty-coloured lights beckoned from the far horizon, making the sky red with a ruddy glow. The surface of the water refracted and reflected this, both on top and under the surface. The dimmest orange flickering glow on the bottom of the river told them their destination was nigh. The warm illumination on the tree trunks invited their curiousity and promised good things to eat.

What more could a salamander reasonably ask? Red eyes glowed in the middle of the meandering creek. Then they submerged, to rest, to wait, and to sleep until tomorrow.

Chapter Thirty-Five

The big cat sat on a branch, purring in contentment...

The big cat sat on a branch, licking herself clean. She purred in contentment, tasting the fresh blood of a rabbit from paws and muzzle. She cleaned herself carefully. The smell of blood was a sure warning to other meals, still on the hoof or crouching cautiously in their burrows. While she groomed her thick tawny fur, she was ever-alert, ever-listening, smelling the wood-smoke and other flavours on the wind. She curled her paw around and cleaned between each toe with her raspy, almost prehensile tongue. She did the other side, then each hind foot, with no hint of her precarious perch.

Her balance and flexibility were miracles of creation.

The killing was easy in these parts, and while the big cat was unaware of the fine geographic distinctions, she had unwittingly moved back into her natural range. She was home, and didn't even know it. The killing was easy so the living was easy, and now the big cat had no natural enemies. No other top-of-the-food-chain predators competing directly with her; nor preying upon her. No other predators to spook the herd, spoiling a perfect set-up at the last instant, to cross ahead of the herd when the wind was wrong, or to leave a scent by a water source, and make them move on to another.

She had the herd all to herself.

She was familiar with the black bears, who were a hereditary enemy, and sparks flew when they met. Yet she hadn't smelled any in so long, she knew they were absent. She didn't waste a lot of time contemplating this. She merely accepted it, and it was good.

While the barking of nervous dogs was often in the air, there were no wolves, and no sign of their past presence. No hint of a pack in the vicinity. No wolverines, no badgers, although their smaller cousins, and pretty good eating when happenstance allowed, such as the groundhog, the raccoon and the possum were in abundance. No moose, the only creature besides one other which truly frightened the big cat. There were plenty of the two-legged noisy ones. She felt a kind of caution, a kind of disdain for them, for they didn't behave properly. They seemed quite mad in their mindless pursuits; mysterious, and unknowable. She had never eaten one. Never even been tempted. They smelled bad, looked odd, and since she had never tasted the meat, she couldn't offer an opinion. She had never really developed a hankering to try it.

The deer that were her favourite meal were big, fat and plentiful, and showed signs of complacency; although lately, they were more skittish. She knew nothing of hunting seasons, but they did and they knew, at least the adults, what time of year it was. It was the time of the rut, when the sound of antlers rattling against other antlers would tell her where to go. Tufts of hair would show where they rubbed against the trees, removing unwanted, scruffy last-season fur; to make way for the glossy new coat of autumn.

Their sweet-smelling tracks were scattered in profusion by the water hole, where almost any morning, she could lie in wait and make a try for one. But now it was time to curl up and go to sleep, with her hindquarters rubbing reassuringly against the tree. She put her head on her paws, and relaxed with her tail curled around her like an expensive stole; on the upwind side to keep the chill away from her toes.

A splishing and splashing came from the bowl of the valley nearby, where the creek curled around upon itself, and ran slow and deep. There was nothing in particular there that she liked to eat, and nothing in particular there that she feared. She put her head down and slept, mind you; always with one ear open. One ear tracked the sound as it made its way down the flowing river. Finally, even that movement ceased, and after a while, so did the purring. Her breath was soft, deep and even.

Pale, frosty light glistened on the bark of oak branches around her perch, high above the blackened woods, all a-shiver with uncertain breezes, coming and going as was their wont.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Mayor Hope Pedlar...

Mayor Hope Pedlar pushed back the sliding door, and stepped out onto the balcony.

Her apartment overlooked Lennox Bay from eighteen stories up. She stood there, despite the chilly evening air, in a moment of contemplation. One year ago; the forty-seven year old single Catholic girl, (and confirmed virgin,) from South Lennox High had won a third term as Mayor of this grubby little one-industry town. The tall, blue-eyed, apple-cheeked brunette had been having a few of these moments lately.

"Gazing out over a wine-dark sea, like some white-armed Andromache," quoth her long-time beau and perennial confidant, Andy Bandy.

"Homer," he added, rather unnecessarily.

The bow-legged, balding, sixty year old, big-bellied gentleman had been hanging on for years waiting for a sign; a sign which she would never give. But if nothing else, they kept each other out of the matrimonial stakes.

"That bastard Flushing blew my cover," she grouched. "He's quoted in the news; saying that I called for a motion at county council, and, 'she knew what she was doing,' according to him."

It was nothing more than the truth, to a certain extent. But their local Member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Mrs. Achmed-O'Malley, seemed to have been betrayed out the back door of the Ministry of Health. She had nothing to do with that—yet here was some lady, some unknown letter-writer in the paper saying, 'The Mayor is very powerful,' and such ilk. The Mayor didn't tell her to deny knowledge of the hospital's cost.

The Mayor only had one vote, and as often as not didn't use it except for tie-breaking. Admittedly the side which lost never took it very well. Achmed-O'Malley, local MPP, was bound to lose her seat now, over the hospital fiasco. The price, once quoted at a hundred and twenty-six million, had somehow skyrocketed to over three hundred and seventy million. Taxpayers were stunned to say the least.

"It's not much comfort, the possibility that Mrs. Achmed-O'Malley is even now plotting your downfall," whispered Andy, nuzzling up to her pink, shell-like ear.

Used to it by now, she brushed him off with a shiver and made for the door of the apartment where a bright golden glow beckoned, a promise of warmth and the very finest in champagne and caviar, hot buttered toast, lobster, truffles and blueberry cheesecake.

They'd rented, 'Madame Butterfly,' Andy's favourite film.

Hope always wondered about the character played by William Hurt.

"How could you not know? How could you not suspect, sir?"

"Then there's Don Speedworthy, and a couple of others," she murmured. "Why do people get so angry?"

"Well, what about Brubaker?"

She sighed. Were they really angry? Or was it just dirty politics?

"Yes, I suppose there's always something behind the grudge," she admitted.

Andy was perfectly aware that after a particularly scathing attack by Brubaker in the paper; she phoned up Chief O'Shaughnessey, trying to find out what the man's beef was.

Obviously, he was beating around the bush about something. He claimed to have been harassed out of his home. What did the cops know? The chief called back and told her the man was suffering from, 'flawed perceptions.'

Rumours of a forced confession were, 'wildly exaggerated,' according to the chief.

"Otherwise; why isn't he behind bars already?" according to O'Shaughnessey. "He's all over town on that big black mountain bike of his, picking up beer bottles, instead."

That didn't seem like a forced confession to the Mayor.

She accepted the answer and let it go at that. But what if he wasn't?

The Chief provided an extensive dossier. Why did he have it for some obscure, pot-smoking, psychiatric basket case? One who couldn't even hold a job as a roofer? Yet Brubaker was also clearly in control of himself, no matter what deep well of anger and resentment he tapped into when he sat down to write.

The reminder of Brubaker brought back last year's election race.

Brubaker attacked her after the Premier, Mr. Walker McSquiddy, came to town with a half a million bucks for research and development of fuel cells. She called in some favours, and the premier delivered. Brubaker took a good-news story and bashed it into the ground. With just the slightest burning sensation in her gut, she wondered, was the man simply power tripping?

Mayor Pedlar had some resentments of her own. Oddly enough; she also knew it wasn't personal with Brubaker. Not too sure how she knew it, but somehow with her feminine intuition, she knew it was some policy. But why keep coming after her?

Why not take it up with the police formal complaints process?

Didn't he trust the cops?

What did he know that she didn't?

She was chair of the Police Commission, after all.

Unofficially; it came back from Les Purvis, through his buddy at the cop shop, that Brubaker had some recording. He claimed that a police sergeant lied to him numerous times; he had it on tape, and he was pissed off about being labeled mentally ill, and being harassed out of his home.

Why didn't the man just accept his fate and get on with his drab, miserable and meaningless little life? In spite of some perceived provocation; Brubaker kept his cool.

He would not allow himself to be provoked. Each and every literary attack was well conceived, brilliantly executed and was doing real damage, if quick and dirty straw polls were to be taken into account. The man was on his own timetable, apparently. And Mayor Pedlar was noticing that no one, not Achmed-O'Malley, nor their Member of Parliament, Dick Chizzler, nor anyone else; seemed willing to engage with Brubaker.

To acknowledge him was to lose face.

To ignore him was even more deadly.

It appeared the criticisms were true.

Man for man, Brubaker was her biggest political threat. The guy simply didn't have the means to run against her. But he was a man with a plan, and that scared her. The cops made the big bucks, and the Mayor struggled along on about thirty-five thousand a year.

Admittedly, it was her own lifestyle, her own choices that made that slipper pinch the foot that bore it. While she sympathized with Mr. Brubaker and his elderly father, who was apparently suffering from Parkinson's disease, according to the Chief, her own financial future wasn't exactly carved in stone.

What did he hope to achieve? With three years left in her term, and with no major political players on the scene to make a serious challenge, Brubaker could definitely do with some watching. If his father died, and left Brubaker a few grand, he might even get the notion to run against her. Clearly Brubaker had a gift of rhetoric. His populist demagoguery could do a lot of harm. That sort of thing depended on who else was running at the time.

He could never win, of course. But he could be a spoiler for someone else. What if the man got up in front of the microphones and could actually speak?

Sure as shooting, it would cause big problems. That mental illness tag might come in handy. Maybe that's why the coppers threw those mental health forms around like so many parking tickets.

You never knew when you might want to railroad somebody.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Barnes and Noble...

Fred Barnes and Ken Noble were planning the next week's news coverage insofar as it could be anticipated.

"So, Hilier's foot; that's a positive ID, but otherwise, lab results negative. He's been missing for over a year," Noble went through copious notes, drawing out the essence.

"I think Les should do this one, but he needs a little guidance," said the short, bald-headed Noble as he flipped through the pages.

"What are we telling him?" Noble asked, black eyes gleaming and raising his dark uni-brow in query.

"Professor Pakenham went missing Easter weekend, but he seems to have been consumed almost-whole," seconded Barnes. "According to the autopsy and lab testing, by some animal as yet unidentified. As for Mrs. Rice, missing since June of last year, the piece of fabric may or may not be from her housecoat."

All of those lab tests were either negative or inconclusive. They hadn't even found Brubaker's DNA on it. It looked like her housecoat; according to nursing home staff. But it was just a cheap yellow robe, with blue flowers. It had a million counterparts around the world.

"And nothing on Josh Hartley?" murmured Noble.

"No. That's the only one the police considered suspicious," Barnes told him. "It never occurred to me to ask until now; why aren't the other ones suspicious?"

"Sergeant Oberon's an expert in psychological crimes. He used to lecture on the subject, out at the Kahunas Klub on Lake Road. At the old school out there. I covered a few of them as a junior reporter. Decades ago, it seems," Noble told Barnes, who had only been in the city for about four years.

"Sergeant Oberon lectured?" Fred's eyebrows rose in disbelief. "Really? What was he, like twenty-two frickin' years old?"

Oberon was an ambitious little fellow. He knew that from personal observation.

"It was deathly boring," remembered Noble. "Mostly old people, looking for a cheap evening out of the house. In fact, they used to bus them in from the old age homes."

"They still do!" quipped Barnes.

Most recently, he and his wife had attended some old couple's slide show.

'A Trip to the Holy Land,' was the title.

He and the wife went. It was a cheap night out.

They didn't do the bar scene.

Noble just nodded and grinned.

"Yes; they do. I specifically remember one that was perhaps a little more interesting than most. It was called, 'The three different types of stalker.'"

"No way! How was it?" asked Barnes.

"Probably right out of a textbook or training manual, but they ate it up," said Noble.

"We have another cougar story," noted Barnes, who tried to squeeze in something different when there was a little space.

Lately their paper was about seven pages. No kidding; everything else was flyers and inserts, and the third section was a hundred percent ads. Two whole pages were anchored by a prominent auto dealership. It's hard to believe that it took up to two dozen reporters, story development guys, editors, and so on to put their slim little paper out on a daily basis.

Sooner or later the axe had to fall.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Cougar sighting in Port Frederick...

Some lady saw a big cat, only this time it was reported as a black one.

Brubaker pinned the clipping to the wall above his drawing table, along with all the others he'd saved since beginning to track this story. He made a mark on the map. If it was indeed the same animal; it was behaving pretty much as he would have expected. The cat got to within seven or eight kilometres of town, then turned back to the northeast.

In that direction, it could follow the lakeshore for miles.

The Pines Provincial Park had a good-sized deer herd up there. If the animal followed the beach, it was maybe forty kilometres. It would be two or three good nights of prowling, essentially.

As for the remarkable colour change; the report didn't mention what direction the lady was looking. If she was looking into the sun, say eastwards at dawn, south at noon or west in the evening, the animal might very well have been the correct colour. It could have appeared as a black silhouette. He couldn't rule it out. In that location; presumably she was familiar with squirrels, or the possums that were proliferating in recent years. Foxes and coyotes don't climb trees, and everyone knows what a raccoon looks like. The reports were so incomplete. People weren't trained observers. Sheer excitement made their observations untrustworthy. People saw, but they did not observe. A squirrel now, its tail was bushy, almost the same size and shape as its body.

If Bru had the opportunity to question the lady, he might have been able to narrow it down. A big cat's tail was extremely long compared to almost any other mammal. It was the same thickness all the way along. Leaping animals such as the squirrel and the cat had long tails. A badger or wolverine has a much shorter tail. But they're digging animals, not climbers. At a distance of thirteen metres, how could she make a mistake like that?

As for the distance traveled between sightings, that was well within the capabilities of a big cat in the time allotted. Brubaker had seen a raccoon run across the road recently at night, perfectly visible in the headlights. At seventy-five or a hundred metres, the tail rings and distinctive hump-backed shape were quickly identifiable. But then, Bru had some experience. While he needed glasses for reading, his vision was in general pretty good.

There was a small herd of deer that seemed to travel back and forth along the limited-access Highway 442. Built in 1980, it was cut right through the heart of a strip of bush that was between two concession roads. Sometimes the herd was on the south side of the highway, sometimes the north. While commuting back and forth to London; Bru saw more than one dead deer in the ditch, presumably hit by some early-morning commuter.

The Pines herd wasn't subject to hunting. Their numbers were becoming a problem. A controversial deer cull had occupied the headlines several years previously. If anyone asked Brubaker's opinion, he would have told them that as a young man, he dreamed of re-introducing the big cats into this habitat. As a more mature adult, he could see the problems.

"People would go fuckin' ballistic," he admitted. "They want to live in the country, leave their pets unattended, and let the kids play in the yard."

They just weren't prepared or even willing to share the habitat, or make any kind of sacrifices in order to accommodate the big predators.

In Brubaker's experience, some human beings were un-trainable.

His sympathy lay with the cats.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Sergeant Oberon gets buggered...Part One.

"What?" gasped Sergeant Oberon in disbelief.

"We got 'im downstairs," Constable Dick Fry told his superior. "Do you want to come on down to the cells real quick, or should we bring him up to the room?

"What do you like him for?" asked the sergeant.

"Dangerous driving is a little iffy, but he admits to speeding on the Lake Road."

The constable took a look at his note pad.

"He borrowed his dad's sports car, an antique. He didn't have permission, but parents typically don't charge the kid for that. He had a couple of joints. He's insisting on talking to a police artist."

"He must be watching too much, 'CSI,' on TV," the sergeant grinned.

The popular TV show's science-fiction lab was totally at odds with reality.

Crime labs were grubby, disorganized little cubicles with old, broken-down equipment; staffed by hack, over-the-hill technicians otherwise unemployable in any normal industry. Still, it gave the public confidence in the system, and that's always good.

"Yeah, yeah. We'll get him an artist, and then charge him with making a false report," muttered Sergeant Oberon. "What's the guy's name?"

"Mike Anderson," said Constable Fry.

"And he turned up here drunk and stoned and with a borrowed car, no permission; and insisted on making this report?"

"Yep," agreed the other copper.

"Okay, bring him up. Play it straight and serious, okay?" raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, sir!"

Sergeant Oberon opened up the room, snapped on the lights, and arranged his notes. It impressed the perps when they were brought in. The sergeant rarely relied on written facts, and such. He preferred the, 'impression,' as they were, 'presented' to him.

Well, the young man made a good impression, and that confused Oberon. He was expecting something akin to delirium tremens, or a PCP-crazed psycho, or a high school boy tripped out on LSD, recent sexual misconduct, and cheap wine. Pot and stuff. Some kid high on Ecstasy; temporarily in love with the universe.

The kid seemed all right.

Twenty years old, the guy had a job and a girlfriend, and no previous beefs.

"Tell me what happened, son, and I'll do my best to keep you out of trouble," he suggested kindly.

"Look, I'm sorry sir. I know I must have looked pretty drunk and crazy when I came in here, but this is real," the young man began, but Oberon held up a hand.

"I know all that," he said calmly and coolly, letting the kid collect his breath. "Just tell me what you saw."

"My old man's going to kill me," groaned the kid.

"Oh, we won't let that happen," joshed the sergeant. "Look, you were driving down Lake Road, enjoying the, what was it?"

"A Triumph TR-250. My old man's heart and soul. Oh, I'm in deep shit now, man," moaned the kid.

"Is that the red one?" asked Oberon.

The kid sat up straighter. He nodded.

"I've seen your dad driving it," Oberon noted.

A real nice car, but the sergeant had a Corvette. Half the guys on the force had Porsches, Corvettes, Jags, Cobras, Healeys...Lagondas. One guy had a Maserati. The other half of the force had yachts and stuff.

A couple of the guys had planes. Link had a jet.

"Where were you? What direction were you traveling?"

The kid let out a deeply-held breath and after some hesitation, began anew.

"I was out near Le Gran Binge, and it was getting pretty late," said the kid.

"Your dad's working in Kuwait?" asked the Oberon, reading the notes provided to him.

"Yes, sir," said the kid.

"Any damage to the car?" asked the sergeant. "Mike, is it?"

"No, there's no damage," acknowledged Mike.

"So what exactly happened out there to upset you so much, Mike?"

"Upset? Upset? Holy, Jesus," Mike seemed about to go off again, but the sergeant calmed him down by phoning out for a coffee for the kid; who slurped at it gratefully when it arrived.

Finally the guy got down to it. He was headed west, doing about eighty-five in a fifty zone, eight or ten kilometres out of town.

"I was coming over the brow of the hill, just before Dead Man's Curve, and that's when I saw it," he told Oberon. "It was fucking huge! Excuse me, normally I don't swear too much, but I mean fucking huge. I jammed on the brakes and watched it go off into the fields."

"And what do you think it was?" asked the sergeant.

"A fucking lizard, a fucking iguana, a fucking dinosaur! I don't fucking know," said Mike. "I know damned well you don't believe me, sir. I swear to God, it was thirty or forty feet long."

He seemed pretty miserable. This was no prank.

"I'm sure you saw something out there, Mike," said Sergeant Oberon. "Promise me you're not on anything? Like a few hits of acid or something? Ecstasy? No?"

"I don't need to lie to you guys," said Mike. "I had a couple of beers in Le Gran Binge. Look, you got to find that thing, man!"

"Only a couple of beers?" questioned the sergeant a little more aggressively.

"It's a borrowed car," said Mike. "I have some fuckin' sense."

"We're going to put you back in the cell while we try to figure out what to do," allowed the Sarge. "Then we'll just get you to sign for the impound of the vehicle."

The kid put his head in his hands and moaned a little at that one.

"Look Mike, play it my way, and maybe we can keep you out of jail, okay?"

Oberon opened up the door and beckoned Fry in. As Fry led the boy out, he tipped him the wink: 'come and see me when you're done.' Fry grinned over the kid's head in

acknowledgment. There was an unspoken humourous comment that went around sometimes.

'Looks like we got us a live one here.'

Phillip Oberon went to his desk and pulled out a Ministry of Health Form 42, an order to commit an individual for three days of psychiatric observation. He looked at the clock, and picked up the phone. He needed a doctor to sign it for him. At this time of night, he was at a bit of a loss. Normally he worked the day shift exclusively, but a fellow officer fell while trimming branches, and he got tapped for the duty. Taking an unused sick day on Monday, and returning to work Tuesday seemed like a good plan.

He even came out a thousand bucks in shift premiums ahead on the deal, but the lack of sleep was getting to him. He'd always hated the night shift. In the early days, that merely spurred his ambition. Back then, he and Connie had big plans, high hopes for the future.

'Twenty-five and out,' he promised.

As senior sergeant, it would look bad to refuse. A nap this morning; he hoped to get back to sleep tonight, and then back to normal for work on Tuesday. But it wasn't working out. Normally a cheerful man around the workplace, he assumed that he was liked and respected by his people. Tonight he was trying very hard not to be grumpy.

Finally someone picked up over there at the hospital.

"This is Sergeant Phil Oberon over at Lennox Police Services," he began to smooth- talk the duty nurse at the hospital emergency department's admitting desk. "Who's on tonight?"

"Well; there's Dr. Davy," she began.

He would insist on examining the patient.

"Nope," he said.

"Dr. Haseltyne is in," she went on.

Again he said, "Nope."

Haseltyne got burned once too often. Someone even threatened to sue him.

"Dr. Chickadee is in," she told him.

"Put me through," he said.

New guy, just over from somewhere...New Brunswick. Moved to town six months ago. Immigrated from Africa, looking to set up in practice and let's see...wife, two kids, the whole gig. They had a file on every doctor in town.

"Hello? Doctor Chickadee," he heard on the line.

"Yes, Doctor, it's Sergeant Phil Oberon over at Lennox Police Headquarters. Listen, I'm going to need you to do me a favour."

The doctor listened. He seemed okay with it.

The Sarge had some time to kill. Monday in the early morning hours was pretty dead until crush-hour traffic got going. He began to chat up the young doctor, who seemed a friendly enough type.

A lot of police work went on behind the scenes and the general public had no idea of how it was done. That's one of the major reasons why; as a young officer, he volunteered to do public speaking. To kind of let the public know the cops were human and that following certain procedures was the best way of controlling crime. If truth be told, TV shows that led people to believe that any crime could be solved by science; the problem with that was; some guy finds a beer bottle on his lawn, he's screaming for a DNA test to catch the perp!

A three-thousand dollar test for a fifty-buck fine on conviction! Considering how cranky some taxpayers could get, it might even be worth it in some cases.

"The key to police work is personal relationships."

He remembered the first line of his first speech in front of an actual audience as if it were yesterday, and quite frankly it was no real trouble to re-iterate a tired old speech for the umpteenth time.

"I mean, let's face it. Everyone wants to be in good with the cops," et cetera, et cetera, blah, blah-blah-blah, blah-blah, ad infinitum.

Oberon was used to talking to judges and juries. A little old country doctor simply couldn't stand up to him. Immigrants, they were always scared shitless of anyone in a uniform, any person with the symbols of authority.

"So anyway, I don't know if you've ever seen, 'Night Court,' like on TV, but the truth is we don't have anything like that here in Canada, and we've got this kid. He's high on drugs or something, and we hate to give a good young guy a bad police record or anything like that..." blah-blah-blah. "Lots of untreated mental illnesses here in this town. I don't know if you've noticed..."

Blah-blah-blah.

"That's right, Doctor. Claims he saw a giant lizard out the Lake Road. Alcohol, pot...

maybe something else. We just don't know. No, he's not violent...seems pretty sincere."

He let the other guy talk for a while.

Blah-blah, blah-blah-blah, blah.

"A pretty nice kid. Really. That's why we don't want to take any unnecessary chances.

I'm sure you would agree? I'd sure like to get your impression before we go ahead with any heavy charges on the boy."

It was like taking candy from a baby, in the final analysis. Fry stood at his shoulder with his partner, Gottschalk.

"Get all that?" he asked.

They nodded.

"Off you go then," he nodded at them pleasantly, and that was that.

The Sarge gathered up most of yesterday's paper, and headed for the coffee urn.

The bright lights of the lunch room and, 'a cuppa Joe' would help him make through until dawn. The squawk of the radio and the occasional buzz of the phone came and went.

He began to read, feet up on his desk.

The coffee was still way too hot after that first sip.

***

Crystal Waters fined for leaky trucks...

by Bill O'Keefe

Krystal Waters hazardous waste facility received a $42,500 fine in a Lennox court yesterday for operating trucks that leaked toxic chemicals and heavy metals. A guilty plea was entered in response to numerous offences under the Environmental Protection Act between June 9 and Oct. 4 at a landfill six kilometres east of Schmedleyville. Toxic materials escaped from nine trucks; reaching the ground but posing no environmental impact. This is according to an agreed statement of facts presented in court by the company and the Ontario Environment Ministry. Justice of the Peace Norbert Krapholtz indicated the firm's history of violations is, 'not that bad,' but he would not alter the penalty.

Krystal Waters Inc. was fined $1,000 for each of the offences and the remainder on other offences involving other vehicles. Krystal Waters has fourteen priors, for offences in 2009 and 2010, resulting in fines of about $300 each. The company has fifty-seven priors under its previous appellation; Sparkly-Green. Government guidelines insist that vehicles be leak-proof. A Ministry of the Environment employee inspecting the trucks on an ongoing basis found the leaking trucks over the five-month period. One was spotted leaking a number of times. The leaking materials included pesticide, paint, chromium and lead, as well as phenols. The company was given sixty days to pay.

Chapter Forty

The attack of the giant mutant salamanders...

The tantalizing aroma of warm blood and fresh meat was on the air. And the warmth!

Surely this was the Promised Land. A rustling in the underbrush. The feel of the cold, hard mud beneath the toes. Others all around. They were on the move, a collective kind of consciousness, enveloping each other in the tranquility of the night. The beating of hearts in unison; all with a common purpose. Something deep in their makeup caused them to go, to seek, to find a new place. The bulging in the abdomens of the females was so slight as to be unnoticeable, yet somehow they knew.

It was time.

Unfamiliar, yet enticing smells. Strange new sounds, vaguely threatening, were everywhere.

So was the meat. To get at the meat, they would risk the sounds. Dry grass crunched underfoot. They came upon a strange surface, one never known in the old place. Smooth, and dry at the moment, and oh, so warm. It had a pleasant smell, stronger but somehow still like the creek of their birth. They crossed the road and came to something they knew well. They burrowed under the hard, almost invisible barrier. It was only good to scratch against.

They crawled into a ditch, with its inedible, shiny-smooth crunchy bits that still smelled like the meat. Up the other side. Into the woods, where they found good cover, and surprised a few small, wriggling, shrieking bits of meat. Still not sated, bellies wanting more, more, more meat. The little ones were unfed, the adults gnashing at the jaws. Tongues gliding in and out, seeking the meat. Tasting the air. Brightness.

Unfamiliar, unknown shapes. The brilliance of the light beckoned. They followed the hollows. While there was water; there was not enough, and so they moved on. The warm water did not cover the adults. They moved on, tasting the air and the water as they went. Listening and smelling and feeling the soil beneath as they advanced, seeking the meat and they knew not what else.

The barren chill of the night drove them on.

The first of them snuggled up against the long, shiny things that sat above the ground on hard, flavourless branches with no leaves. With the weight of them pushing and laying on it, the pipeline finally began to sag, and crack and leak...they could not eat the hot stinky fluid that came out, intoxicating though it undoubtedly was to bathe in the warm wetness. They moved on with the pressure of those who followed, eager to taste the bounty of Providence; and to share in the wealth of this great new land.

New shapes towered over them. Hard, smooth, shiny, colours unseen before in the weird half-light of the flares.

Fires in the sky!

What wonders. What power.

Again they found meat, and shared in the bounty. There was plenty for all, and the food was abundant. The heat of the fires in the sky compelled them to come closer. There was water here, deep and still at the bottom, for the females to lay their eggs. Good places to sleep, good places to walk. Some of them climbed stairs, curving up and around. They climbed onto the domes, feeling the soothing warmth of the metal seeping into their bellies. Some kept on, trying to see the lights, for there were smaller lights scattered in a vast and stunning profusion.

The lights revealed hard, glittering objects. They kept on, seeking for the smells, looking for the meat. Some slowed to investigate. Lights moved past them, making noises. All around them were noises, familiar and unfamiliar noises, barks and yelps from far away, and the high piping of the Others, and a rushing and going sound, like a water fall.

It was paradise, created for their exclusive benefit.

Just as foretold in the Prophecies.

They were home at last.

Chapter Forty-One

Brubaker was in bed with Edward Gibbon...

Brubaker was in bed with Edward Gibbon, author of, 'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.' Bru loved Gibbon for his style, his wit, and his humour. His old man picked up an eight-volume set some few decades ago. One winter about 1992, Bru got a little desperate for something to read. The beginning of the first volume was difficult. As Gibbon explained his purpose and goals, 'the plan,' in writing the work, which Brubaker considered the greatest history book ever written; his style was florid and fanciful.

Overly-decorative.

Only later, would Brubaker see the influence of the baroque in Gibbon's work; the baroque, that most exuberant expression of human achievement. That style was once the norm. Chuck could imagine the short, unprepossessing Gibbon, standing up in polite drawing-room English society, perhaps one of the great literary salons, and expounding in exactly this style. Thankfully, Gibbon loosened up after a bit; and was an entertaining and educational writer.

Earlier that day, for some unknown reason probably related to stress, Bru suffered his first anxiety attack in at least a couple of years.

This time around, at least he knew what it was.

That didn't make it a whole lot easier to deal with. An anxiety attack is a symptom, not a disease. In essence, it is a symptom of intolerable stress, a warning signal to the individual to shut down for a while. Back in about November, 2007, he literally pulled over to the side of the road, and called his mother to talk for ten or so minutes until an attack passed. He simply couldn't drive.

He was too scared, too shaky. And for no reason at all.

He was afraid he wouldn't make it home. It didn't have to be a rational fear by that point. He was afraid his knocking knees and shaking hands would make it impossible to drive, and he feared calling for help.

He feared fear itself.

And who could he call? Certainly not the Lennox cops. What would he tell them?

'Hey! You guys were right! I really am fuckin' nuts...?'

It was like he lost all physical strength in his body.

He was afraid of everything; and nothing at all. He wasn't afraid of a lamp or a TV set. It was his thoughts. He was afraid of walking into a store and what if? What if Mr. LaSally and some friends should see him?

He could imagine Walter or one of his little buddies phoning the cops and telling them, 'I'm afraid for my family,'

Brubaker was afraid of being sent to jail, or the loonie bin; over and over again until he just couldn't take it anymore. Brubaker feared the loss of control. The very real possibility, as it felt sometimes, that he just might go and do something impulsive and stupid.

He couldn't defend himself from accusations of mental illness, and so what if some weirdo claimed to be fearful of him? Is that why some of his buddies followed him once, down in Waltonburg? Was that why some guy in a blue Lumina slid to a halt beside Bru and Willy up on that church roof in London; rolled down the window, popping off pictures with a telephoto lens, and then yelled and screamed some incoherent abuse at the two of them? Who are you going to call, once the cops have you labeled paranoid and delusional?

Oh, yes, Brubaker hated those mealy-mouthed little dickheads, those arrogant Lennox cops more than he could describe. He had no good way to articulate that kind of anger. It always sounded too much like hate mail.

He was afraid that he would get up one morning, go downtown and drive his vehicle through the front doors of the cop shop, leap out and try to kill as many as he could before they shot him. He was afraid that his future would be so bad, so evil, so degrading, so fucking demeaning, that he would jump off the Bridge, and considered it mightily well before rejecting it.

All he could do to cope was to think of the rest of his family.

Was he afraid of himself?

Didn't he trust himself?

Didn't Brubaker know himself?

Coming later, it was these questions that ultimately saved him, but that was later.

He had to suffer through it for a while.

He suffered through it too many times, when he was sitting in the living room, watching TV. He couldn't even remember what was on now. But he had these crazy attacks that sometimes lasted two or three hours. To simply to walk outside, made him feel better—go in the house, and he felt worse.

Today, he figured he must have been thinking the wrong thoughts. Sifting through the past with a fine-tooth comb, re-opening old wounds, re-fighting old battles. Re-writing old, 'Thomas Paine,' speeches,' re-analyzing old evidence, old incidents. He probably caused his own anxiety with what Tony Robbins or someone like that might call, 'bad self-talk.'

Still, it could be pretty scary.

When the first one happened, he really did think he was going mad. He wondered if maybe what they said was true? Was he really, actually, mentally ill? The prospect, the future, of what his life would be like if he couldn't control his demeanour...

Life wouldn't be worth living. They could take away his freedom for any little excuse or provocation.

People like LaSally could remove his humanity and to make him a monster on any complaint.

For those dingbat Lennox cops to predict; "Mr. Brubaker is an unexploded bomb waiting for a chance to go off..."

The power of suggestion is very strong. The cops have manipulated many a person due to their knowledge of human nature, which they get to study up close and under extreme circumstances.

Now Brubaker knew how they abused it from time to time.

He figured it out, all on his own.

In an anxiety attack, the heart palpitates and races. It becomes erratic in its pulse. The lungs tense up. All the muscles tense up. Sweat pours down the armpits. It is a blind, unreasoning, naked fear, nothing more. It doesn't have to be logical. Breathing is shallow, rapid, and unsatisfying. There is no visible cause, and no rational reason.

What am I afraid of?

It's just a TV set, just a room, just a carpet, a chair, a window!

Brubaker, like many a man or woman before, feared the loss of control. The loss of his mind. The loss of identity. The loss of a soul may seem very academic, but Brubaker liked his brain, his mind. He liked it very much. And you don't know what you have until it's gone.

Brubaker liked being who he was.

The accusation of mental illness was an assault upon his identity.

It affected him very badly.

The truth was, he let it get to him.

Brubaker's brain was a finely-honed tool, a precision, highly-developed instrument capable of amazing things. In the final analysis, it was all he'd ever really had.

Without mind, our own minds, we do not exist.

We have no self.

Focusing again on the page, with his eyes tired and sore, his mood not happy at all, Brubaker read on in the hopes of finding some kind of serenity in the classic words.

It was a tough go tonight.

At the height of the crushing burden imposed by the ODSP, when they were all over him for months; with incessant demands for information, holding back badly-needed forms, demanding his books, (and when he turned them in, he didn't hear back for two and a half years,) Bru got up one morning.

He got all dressed up in his best clothes after a shower, and a clean shave.

"So; what's your big plan for the day?" asked his father, with what would be called a sneer in a less-jovial man.

Bru knew his old man had no respect for him; that's why he always treated Bru like a six-year old.

"I'm going downtown to kick some Nazi butt," he told the old fellow shortly.

He began by going to the library, and going on their computers, and studying the ODSP guidelines in detail. It took days, weeks. Months. He studied the newspaper files on micro film.

He carefully studied every human interest or bad fortune story involving disability, and mental illness, and all kinds of social issues. At some point he bit the bullet and took on the government. It was a one-man effort.

It's a funny thing. When Bru began to fight back, when he realized he was not alone; and that tens or hundreds of thousands of disabled people were violated every day, when he realized that they needed him, Charles H. Brubaker; to fight for them; his anxiety attacks miraculously went away.

Brubaker had been called. And the lessons of history were there, for all to read.

"Serenity is mine," he murmured.

The book faded out again. He laid it aside.

From time to time we need a reminder of who we are—and who they are as well.

It was one of the many things he had learned over the years.

'If you do not confront your problems, they will overwhelm you.'

Chapter Forty-Two

The bizarre juxtaposition of psychosexual elements...

Bru sat there in the middle of the night, reading last night's paper.

Water levels drop to new lows...

Inland creeks and rivers across Lennox County have hit new lows, according to Hilly Bakhander of the Lennox Region Conservation Authority.

"Plummeting water levels are not restricted to the Great Lakes," he says. "It's pretty widespread. We're finding across the watershed; that residents report the lowest water levels they've ever seen."

Low water levels have forced conservation measures and threaten some species of wildlife. Several gauges in the region which monitor water levels confirm the drought is causing major problems.

According to Bakhander, "Some industries aren't even able to irrigate anymore, depending on where they are."

Residents are being asked to cut back on intake from local water sources. Operators of produce operations, golf courses, sod farms, and industry, as well as private citizens; have been asked to voluntarily reduce water consumption by 15 percent. Chemical Alley firms that take cooling water from the St. Irene River have also been asked to cut down. The request was made in late June, when a 'level one' alert was issued for the region.

It will extend for at least one year. If a 'level two' alert were to be issued, users would be asked to cut back a further 10 percent.

"Although compliance is voluntary, most realize it's in their own best interest to reduce consumption. It's not an infinite resource, even though sometimes it appears that way. People need to understand there is a supply issue," said Bakhander.

Rainfall in the region is about 50 percent below normal levels for summer time.

–Staff Writers

Purvis was as horny as a ten-peckered billy goat...

Purvis remembered part of a jingle. It was an old ketchup commercial. His old man's antique videotape collection was chock full of old stuff, some of it fascinating enough in its own way.

"Anticipation, anticipation," Carly Simon or somebody.

He wondered if he should go on the net and try to locate that song, and then play it on the car stereo when he picked up Schwartzie.

'Bad idea.'

"No, she wouldn't appreciate that," he acknowledged, picking up on the gleam in his sardonic, icy blue eyes as they were reflected in the bathroom mirror.

Purvis was as horny as a ten-peckered billy goat. The only parallel in his experience was the curious incident of the train ride. In high school, his girlfriend was actually a year older than Les, and they'd had a pretty good thing going. When she went to university in Ottawa, time went by. Les hadn't seen her for five or six weeks since her last weekend at home.

Money was tight for both of them. Her dad was fixing up a car for her. But it wasn't ready yet. His car needed a master cylinder for the brakes. He purchased the part, then Les only got about half-way into the job. Then she called him up and said her roommate was going away for the weekend. When he explained about the car, she suggested the train.

Les thought, why not?

They were right in love, he remembered fondly.

It's a funny thing about trains. The metal tracks come in sections of a certain length.

The tracks are nailed to wooden cross-ties. The railroad gangs leave a little gap, so the tracks can expand and contract with the changes in ambient temperature and sunshine, and things like that. Les was no science-geek type guy, but he understood the basic premise. The beat, no coincidence in his mind, was exactly the same as in the Simon and Garfunkel song, 'Cecilia.'

"Cecilia, you're breaking my heart. You're breaking my confidence baby," he grinned at himself as he shaved.

"Tick-tah-took-tah," he tried to do it. "Tick-tah-took-tah..."

Yeah. That's it.

"You're breakin' my confidence ba-a-a-by," he nasally parodied in a high, fairly monotonous tone.

"Oh, Cecilia, I'm down on my knees, I'm beggin' you please, let me eat you," he giggled, then decided to stop.

Sometimes you heard funny things coming through the bathroom vent in this Mickey Mouse little apartment. It probably worked both ways, he realized rather belatedly. Had he sang anything really raunchy in the shower lately? He couldn't remember anything too grotesque.

There was a certain rhythm to the train at cruising speed. The steel wheels on steel tracks, the hard-padded leather benches, the swaying from side to side, for some reason it all made him incredibly horny. It might be hard to explain, but chicks liked riding on Harleys, right?

It had something to do with the uneven beat of those V-twin engines. An asymmetrical thumping beat got chicks off. At least that was the theory, as expounded in certain men's magazines.

Once he had a hard-on, it was there for the duration. And who could have avoided it? He knew where he was going, and what he expected to find when he got there. Chicks got horny on bikes. When he had been working a little longer, he meant to get one. But once he had an erection, it just wouldn't go away. Pissing, he practically had to stand on his head in the tiny, swaying God-damned booth that passed for a washroom on VIA rail.

Just try to pee!

Just try not to piss all over the wall. Hell; even the ceiling. They say the vibrations of the typical v-bike engine; well, it stimulated women. Les suffered through about a seven-hour erection, jammed into the tight jeans he wore back then. As a young man in good health and physical condition; poor old Les had never experienced anything like that. Not even in school, when it seemed every time you sat down at your desk and looked around the room, you started wondering in some day-dreamy way, 'What would Brittany be like in bed?' and, 'I wonder how Ashley would look flat on her back with me fucking her?'

At that age, ninety percent of the girls were attractive. Not like now.

To look at a girl and think, "God, would I ever like to eat that!"

At the end of every period, taking one's sweet time to put the books and pencils away, praying to God the hard-on would subside, and thinking about baseball. School was so boring, and he guessed school boys so horny, so driven by their glands, that he had pretty much fantasized about every girl in the class! And eventually every female teacher in the school; and that's including the nuns and the cleaning ladies. Purvis had a pretty good idea of what Schwartzie was going to look like naked.

But he wanted to verify it, like a good reporter should.

Thank God he didn't have to put up with a seven-hour train ride.

***

Ryebaum was in the lab, where he had a separate workstation.

With the death of chemistry-based photography, Ryebaum successfully made the transition. Digital equipment was getting simpler to operate by the day.

For certain procedures, the old chemical process was still valid, and at home Ryebaum had his own darkroom in the basement. In the newsroom, the removal of the lab opened up fresh orkspace. Rick Ryebaum promptly commandeered it. His computer desk was here, and while wet prints were no longer hung up to dry, and there was no longer any need to dry film, the walls were still covered in images.

A photographer still had to look at his work to edit it, and often as not a really nice shot didn't make the paper. Some of these trophies ended up on 'The Wall.'

Of all the newspaper editorial staff, he used the phone least and had the quietest space.

The space was in effect no bigger than anyone else's, and a couple of others came and went, but he had more wall space than anyone. He could close the door, and the ringing of phones and the mutter of conversation dropped away from his little reality. His printer buzzed and whirred. He pulled out the sheet of paper, an image of a young girl. She was walking her dog in a rainstorm, feet bare, shoes in her hand. She and this tiny little black dog. It stared with tail held proudly high, and grinned directly at the camera with a tongue-hanging-out-sideways, cute little doggy smile. The eyes of both were locked on the lens.

With her youthfulness, there was a kind of innocent voyeurism, a sexuality in the very short cut-off jeans, the lacy cotton halter top, a small black leather purse over her bare shoulder perfectly accessorizing with the dog. Tiny breasts just accentuated the freshness, the wholesomeness of the image. It never occurred to him that he was taking pictures of a fourteen-year-old girl. He was a professional and it was a public place. She gave her permission, and he had every expectation of it making the paper.

He tacked it onto the five-metre long bulletin board, and then sent it electronically to Barnes' workstation, dark and silent behind his glass office wall. It was almost midnight.

It was attached to a message noting this might be tomorrow's editorial photo, a rather free format where the newsworthy aspect took second place, and other positive or even whimsical messages might be put across with pictures. The whole world was going crazy these days, especially the weather. All this global warming. Bare feet in November! Amazing. The caption would be, 'Bare footin.'

He worked without any thought or notion whatsoever as to what might actually be in that water falling from the sky. Ryebaum was a simple, uncomplicated man who wanted nothing more than to exercise his craft, his love, his passion. That passion was clearly photography. Nothing else mattered. If the newspaper didn't use pictures anymore, Ryebaum would have gone somewhere that did. It never occurred to him, that he might be a journalist, a high-status position which was a privilege and a gift. Ryebaum took all that for granted. Rick was very good at his job. He pulled the phone from the charger on the back of the desk and shoved it into his pocket, placed a few items into a briefcase, and then hit the light switch.

He stepped from the building's back door and went down the steps leading to the employee parking lot. In the pool of amber light cast by the security lights, he enjoyed the full moon and crisp, late autumn air. Momentarily he considered going out into the country and taking a few pictures of the moon. While not exactly jaded by the prospect, he decided against it. Mind you, it would be nice to get a picture of the full moon hovering over a line of tall, dark pine trees. He could see the picture in his mind's eye. It was late enough already. Melanie would kill him if he did it three nights in a row.

Rick had a pretty happy marriage, and wanted to keep it that way.

In the shadows by the corner of the building, something moved. He jumped at the sight, then got a grip on himself. Probably just a cat.

He ignored it, but then it moved again. The whole ground was moving. He was struck by the recollection of a mama skunk with about twenty kits following her across a dark road, like a bobbing, walking carpet of life. Quite startling in the headlights. He stuck his hand in his pocket; seeking little flashlight. You never knew just how dark it might get, and trying to find the keyhole in the car door in pitch blackness could be frustrating.

Where the heck did it go?

Ah, here...he flipped the switch.

At first there was incomprehension; but it wasn't skunks. Thank God for that.

"Hello, little fellow," he said, bending over to have a look.

"Muh-ugh," it croaked back at him, in the oddest little voice.

"Huh!" said Ryebaum.

"Huh!" said the reptilian creature; regarding him from a sideways-turned head and one beady little black eye.

"What...the heck...are you?" asked Ryebaum in astonishment.

He'd never seen an animal like this in his entire life. Not in the wild, and certainly not in the city. Maybe a pet in someone's apartment, or in a zoo or something. What was it doing out in the frigid evening weather? Ryebaum loved animals, and regularly donated to the Global Wildlife Fund.

"Muh...muh," the thing said, or seemed to say.

Without a further thought, Ryebaum opened up the truck tailgate.

"Here you go, little buddy," said Ryebaum as he lifted the little bugger up into the back of his Suburban.

He crooned lovingly.

"You're such a big boy. Are you hungry?"

It was bigger and heavier than he thought.

"You must weigh twenty kilos," he told the thing in the same talking-to-baby voice he used when little Stevie needed a bottle in the middle of the night.

"Muh-uh," it told him with a smile on its pebbly face, all shiny and moist-looking.

A funny, blunt-ended yellow tongue made darting motions in his face.

"Melanie's just going to love you," he told it. "Good boy! We'll be home in a minute."

He murmured to the thing in a baby-talking, soft, and reassuring voice which he had learned well.

Little Stevie was teething, and he had a hunch his mom would still be up.

Chapter Forty-Three

Melanie Kissworthy was the Dairy Queen for 2010...

Melanie Kissworthy was getting ready for bed after a late night out. Standing in front of the full length mirror in her long dressing gown, combing out her long, honey-golden hair, she wished it had more curl. But mommy refused to let her put chemicals and stuff in it; or to do anything really interesting with it.

"Wait until you need it, Hon. You have such beautiful hair," her mom said.

At seventeen years old, Melanie Kissworthy was the Lennox County Fair Dairy Queen for 2010. Okay, it sure didn't sound too glamorous, but it was a start. Maybe the start of something big. While her mom was pleased as punch at her uncertain victory, even her dad, so remote and distant at the best of times, took notice.

"I'm real proud of you, honey," he murmured in his faraway tone, and then just as promptly returned to his evening paper.

Still, it was something. Perhaps even enough. And he was paying more attention to her lately. She was almost sure of it.

Yesterday, when she passed the creamed corn, he distinctly said, "Thank you," momentarily raising his eyes and making a kind of brief eye contact.

She was shocked at the sadness she saw there, briefly troubled because she didn't understand the reason for it. Her dad had been so withdrawn, for so long, she assumed it didn't apply to her. Still, he seemed to come out of his shell, even if it was for only the briefest of moments.

And this morning, when she asked for thirty bucks so she could go to the movies with her friends, he didn't complain, but smiled ever so slightly and then his hand moved to the hip pocket. Or last week, when pressed to come to her dance recital, he didn't rule it out entirely, using the tired old excuse of, 'work.'

Daddy looked her right in the eyes, and said, "I'll try, honey," and she believed him.

Melanie had learned to love dancing. In the beginning it was fun, to be the centre of attention for her parents, and other girls; and their parents as well. She was actually pretty talented, even if she did say so herself.

But she was just a little girl back then. Now she was a woman. Presumably, she was a woman. Is this what a woman feels like? Dancing was fun, but she was neglecting it for other interests.

She realized that this involved some kind of decision.

She wondered if this was like maturity, or something.

Theoretically, she was a woman. Intuitively, she knew that she would wake up some morning and there would be no doubts. But in the meantime, it was enough to be growing up, and looking forward to a life of freedom. An exciting life, romantic, not all drab and boring like her own family. So ordinary, so...she remembered an expression of her Aunt Wilhelmina's, 'So bourgeois...'

Like peasants in a nineteenth century farmhouse, mostly concerned with their bellies, debt and repayment, births, deaths and marriages, and those innumerable church feast days. Melanie found home life to be stifling.

What would her life be like? A baby. She wanted a baby of her own to love and to hold, and to watch him grow up into a big strong man, kind, and honorable, and just.

Truth is, she didn't know what she wanted, but of course she had a few ideas. She could admit that parental concerns, and school concerns, and social concerns like her huge circle of friends and acquaintances were quite secondary. To a girl her age, the most important thing in the whole world was boys.

Did they like her?

Did they see her?

Did they think about her? She felt funny for a moment, oddly self-conscious.

Almost as if someone was watching through a crack in the blinds while you had a shower. Did boys think about her when they, ah; masturbated?

Of course they must. Someone must.

She wasn't that bad.

A momentary grin lit up her face, giving her a weird, momentary premonition of the face of the future woman she might become.

Interesting.

She smiled at the thought of little Todd Garisson, all four-feet-nine inches tall and with that funny little upturned nose, and a harelip, and buck teeth, and a lazy eye, and a withered arm. His parents didn't believe in inoculations and he got polio. Todd, in bed; wearing those big thick glasses and masturbating while he thought of her?

Todd had the biggest crush on her in grade five.

"Oh, God," she thought.

She thought of his stammer, "Oh, b-b-baby, I'm c-c-c-coming!"

Funny and not funny at all. Disgusting, really. She felt a moment of sadness for Todd, and then just as promptly forgot him. The victory at the pageant opened up a whole new world of self-analytical soul-searching. Everyone was always telling her to make the right choices.

What did she want?

What did she want in life? And what did the other sex want out of life?

Did they want her? Did she occupy boy's minds, the way they occupied hers? The most important thing in the world to a girl her age, was she attractive? Sure, a few boys paid her some attentions, why; skinny Mark Watson, with his bookish ways and false-adult mode of speech walked her to school every day. She was not entirely unaware of the gleaming blue eyes behind their silvery wire-rimmed glasses; and Mark's sidelong glances at her leotard-clad legs. Even back in grade six, when he first started calling at her door at a quarter after eight every morning, she suspected something was up.

He was a nice enough guy, of course. But in the words of a recent history lesson, 'familiarity breeds contempt.'

That was harsh. He was a nice enough guy; he just didn't turn her crank, as her daddy used to say before he became quiet, and began to disappear every evening after supper for a few hours out in the garage. There was nothing in the garage. Only to come in and watch the news, and then take off again for a very long drive to the store around the corner and not come back for forty-five minutes or even an hour and a half.

Like last Sunday night. Mommy seemed not to notice or even care.

She put it out of her head. If mommy accepted it like it was natural, why should she question it? Still, she was curious.

Did daddy have a mistress? Delicious thought, yet she ruled it out. Daddy was too much of a stick in the mud, a dried up old fuddy-duddy. In the final analysis, while certainly not a prude...they'd had her right? Daddy was too sexless. Maybe drugs, certainly not booze. She was familiar enough with his beery breath, and he always seemed to be in a jolly, happy mood when he drank beer with Uncle Al and Bo, the guy next door.

Was she attractive? Was she beautiful? Was she beautiful, seductive, mysterious enough to attract a man? Not that she was interested in men. She liked cute guys.

She heard a funny noise outside, and then it happened.

The window smashed in and shards of glass showered the carpet around her bare feet. She started to scream. She was stamping her feet, running on the spot, slapping her feet in hysteria. Oblivious to the pain and the blood; she waved her hands and arms up high, up by her face. She was sobbing and crying as something big and yellow and nubbly-looking came in the window. It swept past, barely missing the front of her nightgown before withdrawing with a sibilant hiss. Through her tears she heard a horrible wet sucking noise, then a grunt.

She couldn't breathe. Gasping for breath, she was rooted to the spot in front of her window. Shouting noises came, from outside her door and over in the direction of the living room. There was pain like she had never known, and the splash of blood from her feet.

"Oh...mommy," she moaned and sucked in a fresh, shuddering breath as something came slamming in the window again and grabbed her shirt-front and pulled her out, stuck to it like glue. Mercifully; she lost consciousness when her head hit the top of the frame on the way past, leaving a spattering of blood, gobs of bright red blood, hot and wet and gooey.

Her parents ran screaming into the room.

But she was already gone.

Not too far away, a giant mutant salamander, the result of too many years of industrial pollution, nuclear waste spills into local waterways, and high environmental levels of growth and sexual hormones, and endocrine disruptors; moved through the cool dampness of the clinging underbrush, momentarily sated with the good feeling of fresh, warm, sweet meat in his belly. And all was well with the world.

Chapter Forty-Four

Brubaker sat in his chair, watching the Weather Station...

Brubaker sat in his sagging, mouldering old armchair. He was watching the Weather Station. He looked at the crucifix hanging on the wall opposite. It was above and beside the TV, a little to the right. Of a good size, it looked like a bronze sculpture. The actual cross was wooden, but the figure of Jesus was probably just painted ceramic. He didn't really care. The symbolism was the important thing. Brubaker prayed a lot, for an atheist. He even talked to the thing sometimes.

Sometimes he just couldn't sleep. Tonight was one of those nights.

Earlier that day; Bru came home and found his old man in the kitchen, shaking like a leaf. Big Frank was all upset about something.

"This was in the mailbox," his old man said, mouth, jaws, and lips quivering, and with his hands shaking like branches in a windstorm.

Bru took the envelope from him and examined the curious title on the cover, printed on some cheap dot-matrix printer.

It said: 'Alert.'

Then the next line, Neighbourhood Watch, next line, Community Safety.

The next line said, "Important."

The letter was pure poison.

Dear neighbour;

It has come to the attention of this writer that living among us is an unregistered sex offender with untreated mental disorders. Charles Henry Brubaker of 853 Knight Street is known to police and has been seen taking photographs of young children in and around the St. Matthew's school area. For years this man has been known to sit on the front porch with his aging father and stare at children walking on their way home from school.

Mr. Brubaker is a poor-minded, life-long drug user who has never worked and has had numerous encounters with police resulting in incarcerations under the mental health act.

He is evidenced to have been charged with stalking a neighbour with criminal intent in the past and was relieved of various drugs, firearms, pornography and photographic equipment at that time. This was due in part to neighbouring children complaining that the man regularly undressed in view of a window through which neighbours could see him. The charge was so strong that he wasn't permitted to be within several hundred feet of his own residence.

Please be aware that this writer prefers anonymity by reference only to the safety of my child. Community awareness of a sex offender and peeper is all that concerns me about this person. Our collective safety demands this, and so should you. Take back our street from this deviant by being alert and critical to his nature.

Snoopy the Snitch

Neighbourhood Watch

"You have to call the cops," the elder Brubaker told his son. "I'm implicated too, you know!"

At that exact moment in time, Brubaker couldn't think of anyone he hated more than those scum-sucking jerks, those degenerate sons-of-bitches down at the Lennox Cop Shop. It couldn't be LaSally. The man was vicious, but this...this. No. To sneak around at night and stick this in the mailbox would have taken a smidgeon of guts.

"Why bother? They're the ones who wrote it," he told the old man. "Them and them fucking fascist cocksuckers at the paper."

One of these days there will be a reckoning, a little voice in his head said, loud and clear.

So that's why Brubaker prayed so much lately. He didn't pray for revenge. He didn't pray for something bad to happen to someone. He didn't pray for money or success, or anything trashy and useless like all that.

He prayed for justice. A little bit of justice would go a long way. It would take care of all the rest.

All kinds of crazy thoughts went through Chuck's head—and they were all relevant.

In the movie, 'Hang 'em High,' starring Clint Eastwood; there is a scene where Clint goes to the judge.

"Those boys saved my life! Why are you hanging them?"

And the judge says, "It's because of that magnificent journey across the desert, with three murderers. If I don't hang those boys, then there will be more lynchings in the territory. Men will say, 'there is no justice in this territory.'"

Brubaker stood in front of his crucifix, barely aware that it was four a.m.

He prayed for guidance, and courage, and strength, and patience.

He prayed that he might have the privilege of bringing those dirty, stinking Lennox cops to justice someday.

Yes, Mr. Brubaker had learned to hate the Lennox Cops, and to loathe and despise the good folks at the Guardian-Standard.

"All I ever wanted to be is a writer," he told Jesus hanging on the wall. "Sometimes it just doesn't seem worth it."

The crucifix was silent, but there was a little voice inside of his head.

"Get them. Get them good."

Brubaker stood there for a long time, praying for inspiration.

"So you want to play God, do you?" he murmured to the walls.

Thinking of Barnes, O'Keefe, that little butt-kisser Purvis, the asshole Sergeant Oberon, he spoke to the crucifix on the wall.

"I think it's time they learned to suck the cock of the fire-god."

It was a reference to a certain Monster Magnet song he liked.

Damn straight, and Brubaker would think upon it. He would think upon it well. Is this how the police reacted to his criticisms of the budget process? The police had him down in their files as, 'paranoid and delusional.' They expected him to run away, or commit suicide, or show up at the front desk of the Guardian-Standard, yelling and screaming, abusive and threatening...

Suddenly he remembered a funny little story Shawnia told him. She was a middle-aged Cree woman, oddly enough, although they were up in northern Ontario or Manitoba or something. Around here, the people were all Ojibwe. But she was a Cree, and her name was very pretty, musical in her language.

People always thought 'Indians,' talked in grunts.

She told him all about I.M. Stoner. Bru knew him from college days. They'd done a little drinking together.

Stoner went a little kooky and sent her an anonymous letter, and while refusing to tell him what was in it, she said it was, 'hateful.'

She was dead certain it was him.

"Oh, yeah," she said firmly. "It was him."

Certain information in the letter, which only he could know...it was put there so she would know who wrote it, without being able, (or willing,) to prove it. A pattern.

"So what's the funny story?" Chuck asked.

"I heard he was down at the cop shop, at the front desk, yelling and shouting. He was all red in the face, all kinds of sweat pouring down and my friend was there picking something up..."

Stoner had an extremely rare malady, one that caused him to sweat profusely for no real reason. Her friend went down there to pick up her driver's license after a roadside suspension.

"Oh, yeah?" asked Bru.

"It was something about an anonymous letter. My friend said she thinks he got one," Shawnia told him.

"No way! Why was Stoney shouting at the cops? That never does any good. Does it?"

His initial reaction to the anonymous letter was that it was a set up, and that he was expected to react...to do something.

It stank to high heaven.

"What a dirty, stinking, miserable, shitty little town," he told the crucifix on the wall. "There is no justice in Lennox County."

No argument there.

A little voice in his head spoke to him.

"Kick their asses, Brubaker."

Chapter Forty-Five

Oberon gets buggered Part Two...

On twelve-hour shifts, the official line is that the shift begins at seven am.; or seven p.m.

The unofficial line says that in order to provide continuous round-the-clock coverage, personnel are to be in the building by six-thirty. This is so officers can exchange certain information on cases that may overlap shift changes. If someone is five minutes late, well; they're not really late...right? And the person they're relieving gives them a blast of shit. It's kind of an honour system. As for those who abused it, the day would come when their relief showed up a half hour late; usually when they had an important anniversary with the wife or girlfriend.

That usually got the message across.

Due to mutual consent, just like the shift workers in Chemical Alley, the Lennox Police actually changed shifts at six o'clock. In summer, on the day shift, you could be home in time for a late dinner, and have a few hours with the family. On night shift, you could be home in bed by about twenty minutes to seven. After six or seven hours of sleep, you could get up, run a few errands or cut the lawn. Have an early dinner and head in to work, although many officers skipped the meal at home. A lot of guys ate at seven or eight in the evening; after the rush of evening traffic incidents. Then you would have plenty of energy for the busy hours of the bar crowd. The routine might vary somewhat according to the season, or the circumstances. The arrangement worked pretty well, having evolved over more than a century and a half. Even the Romans had developed a kind of policing.

Sergeant Oberon arrived home at five minutes to seven. As shift supervisor he had more information, more dockets to discuss with his relief than a mere constable.

Even though it was a pretty quiet night and thank heaven for that.

He stripped off the uniform in jig time, and slung it into the laundry basket. He made a double scotch on the rocks and headed for the shower. Half the drink was gone before he had his socks and underwear off and the water running at the correct temperature.

He stepped into the shower and began to lather up his armpits, and rubbing the hot washcloth around his eyes. Then he tentatively reached out and picked up the drink. He gulped some. He soaped up thoroughly in the armpits, asshole, feet, et cetera. There was a little ledge on the end of the shower where the spigot head came out of the wall. Not too much spray there. Just a fine mist which wouldn't hurt the drink if he didn't splash shampoo around too much. With his head at a quarter-inch stubble stage of growth, he really didn't need much shampoo.

"A little dab'll do ya," he sang softly.

A very old jingle, from an old-fashioned hair fixative. His dad used it. The song was a reminder of his dear old dad. Brylcreem, that was it.

"A little dab'll do ya," he sang again gently.

While the kids were off to university, his wife might still be sleeping.

The house was silent when he arrived, and at this stage of the marriage, he didn't run into the bedroom and shout, 'Honey, I'm home!'

A lot of cops got their heads shaved for charity. The Breast Cancer people were always a favourite cop charity. For a woman to lose a breast was a real tragedy. Any man could see that. Anyhow, he believed in good community relations, especially with the nicer people. The taxpayers and property owners who made this town what it was. Their blind, mindless self-absorption and natural diffidence ensured that they prefer not to ask too many questions.

After rinsing away the soap and shampoo, he took a gulp and then it was down to a quarter. There were times when a scotch tasted so good. Turning, he let the spray run on his neck, and shoulders, and then down the back.

He sucked back the last of the drink, and picked up his razor. To shave in the shower was a real timesaver. Really, you didn't need shaving foam. Your whiskers and skin were all soft from the hot water. You didn't need to rinse all the dead whiskers out of the sink.

The important thing was to rinse off carefully. A couple of tiny whisker-stubbles down your back or under your shirt collar would drive you nuts. Right in the middle of a high-speed chase, the thing would be itching and messing up your focus. It made it hard to shoot at a perp's tires. You might come home with a big red welt, which could take a couple of days to clear up.

He stepped out and dried off, and slipped into his housecoat. He went looking for another drink. A few minutes of CNN, then it would be time to hop into bed. What a long, boring, surprisingly exhausting night. He grinned in sudden recollection of that Anderson kid.

"You're not getting any younger, buddy."

It wasn't the first time Phillip Oberon ever told himself that!

His wife rolled over.

"Good morning, honey," she said; and he kissed her on the cheek.

It was good to be home.

Chapter Forty-Six

A head like a half-chewed caramel...

The sergeant woke with a pounding pain, and a head like a half-chewed caramel.

The bed beside him was empty. Light streamed in through the billowing sheers of the bedroom curtains and the phone was ringing. The wife was a fresh-air freak, but he was used to the chill by now.

"Ugh," he said, making a grab for it. "Mmn. Hello."

He grumbled as politely as he could through the thick fog of an hour's sleep and a pair of double scotches. There was a dull ache behind his eyes.

"It's Riley! We got another runner," a voice bellowed excitedly into the phone.

"A wha—" gasped the sergeant. "A runner?"

"That Anderson kid," began Riley.

Phil was awake now. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and reached for the glass of water his wife habitually had there.

"What happened?" he asked flatly and succinctly, more lucid-sounding, even to his own ears.

Calmly.

"As soon as they got him in the ward, he freaked out," Riley reported as the sergeant jammed his feet into the slippers.

He bolted to the bathroom, and sat on the toilet, trying to save a second here, a second there. Like a race at times. Thank God for cordless phones. Riley's cigarette-roughened, boozy voice kept droning in his ear, and pure adrenalin was making his hands shake.

"The guy tried to push back out, but they blocked the door. Then he was running around the halls with the guys trying to catch him, with all the nurses helping, and a couple of patients running around trying to stay out of the way," Riley explained.

"So?" barked Oberon.

"So; he hit the panic door, the fire door at the far end. Down the stairs and out into the street," advised the other shift supervisor.

Sergeant Oberon visualized fire alarms going off, noise and confusion, patients going all buggy...shit.

"So where is he now?" asked Phillip, knowing there would be questions, concerns.

"He's dead, Phil."

"Oh, my God."

A sick pit opened up in the base of his guts, and it felt like his asshole was going to fall out. It was like being kicked in the nuts without the impact of a kick or blow.

"What did you guys do?" he barked. "Damn it!"

"Look, the guy holed up in a house on Knorr St. The two-hundred block. We weren't even sure what house he went in. Some old folks say he went in their house, but that's not where he stole the car from. Some guy was warming up the vehicle to go to work, and; well...he was headed right towards Gottschalk. He shot at the tires, but the car veered and hit a tree. Gottschalk called to him to come out, but he kept trying to start the engine. I guess it stalled on him. And then he shot him seven times."

"Oh, Jesus, God, fuck, no." moaned Phil Oberon.

"What kind of bozo shift you running here, Phil? I've never seen such a fuck-up, and two supposedly well-trained guys! You fuckin' well put that dickhead Fry in for a fuckin' award, didn't you? You fuckin' guys did the same thing a few months ago, didn't you?"

Riley was livid with Oberon, who had never been spoken to like that by a fellow police officer in his entire life. The anger struck at his guts, a cold shot of adrenalin.

"Ease up, buddy! Let's find out what happened here," he retorted, neck bent over to hold the phone against his ear as he wrestled with the task of putting on his pants.

"Get your ass down here, Phil. You got a couple of young guys down here, they're talking up a storm with the civilians, who are all over the fuckin' place," he was advised.

"Well. Tell them to use the ear pieces and tell them to back off the civvies! Then tell them to keep their fucking mouth shut!" he blurted at the other man.

He was practically falling over. One foot was hung up at the knee of his pants, the lower leg of the trousers was all twisted up or something.

"Christ! Tell them to turn down the friggin' volume..."

"You fuckin' cocksucker, Oberon! You never wondered why no one wants to make a mutual with you?"

"Hey, hey, hey," protested Phil. "You're getting way out of line, buddy."

Momentarily he put the phone down to pull a T-shirt on.

"I'll be there in twelve minutes," he told Riley.

But Riley was already gone.

Chapter Forty-Seven

The giant mutant salamanders felt the heat of the sun...

The giant mutant salamanders felt the heat of the sun and began to move. The largest ones, sharing body heat with the little ones, were the first to stir. That stirring in turn prodded the others into life. They were quickly awake. In the fashion of children everywhere, little ones ran to and fro. They ran ahead, exploring their new playground. It has ever been the lot of children not to worry; and to take things as they come. Their high-piping voices joined together in a song. Proud parents looked on, turning their broad flanks to the warmth, and supervising benevolently.

It was good here.

The shattered pickup truck meant nothing.

The broken door, the smashed windows, meant nothing. The gate, folded and bent like a paper clip, meant nothing. The cheep-cheep-cheep of a locator alarm on a valve meant nothing to them, but the steam venting out in short, sharp spurts was a good thing.

They liked the steam. What unheard-of luxury! Such a wealth of heat.

The road, the ditches, the embankments meant nothing to them. They could smell meat, quite a lot of it, and nearby. Now that they were becoming accustomed a little to the delicious smorgasbord of delightful smells, the aromas on the breeze promised many a fine feast to come. The strangeness of the other smells did not trouble them quite so much. As for the incessant buzzing of noise all around, one could get used to it. You could get used to anything, given time. But as well, those noises helped them to find the meat.

Perhaps God, in Her Eternal Wisdom, was making life easy for them.

"Mr. Jones? Bill Jones? Jonesy! What's going on with that valve, man?" the disembodied voice coming out of the little black box meant nothing to them, but the moving shape coming down the road did mean more meat.

They were learning fast.

Some of the younger ones raced out to meet it in anticipation, to watch, to learn how to kill, and to lick up the delicious blood where it spilled. Most were too small to kill it, of course. The adults began to rise up and slither forward on their bellies, using their snouts to push aside the long grass and bulrushes of the road's verge.

"Ah! Ah! Ah! Oh, sweet Jesus!" a disembodied voice came out of the little black box on the ground.

The salamanders ignored it, and ripped into the truck with Bob Muggeridge and Andrew Hudson, employees of Buncor inside. Thirty metres away, over another embankment, behind the row of trees, past the ditch and the fence, again came the sound of breaking glass. Young people! They're so jaunty.

Always running ahead of the adults.

More shapes to rip open, and to feast upon the tender, rich food that was encapsulated inside. More noses in the meat, more noses poking into the flesh, more noses exulting in the blood. The high, shrill, shrieking noises made it even more fun than usual to eat.

No hurry.

There was plenty for all.

Sounds came from the right and left, as the biggest giant mutant salamanders waited for the meat to get a little closer. Then they lunged forward, and pounded out the shiny clear bits. Tearing into the delectable lungs, the liver, the hearts of the morning shift at Colonial Oil Company, plus a few guys from Scow Chemical.

They tasted best of all.

To push the head into the back corner of the mouth, to crunch down and feel the warm juices cascading out onto the palate and tongue.

Mmn, mmn, good.

Now this was really living.

***

Phil raced through the streets in his black, 1963 split-window Corvette, tires angrily screaming as he pounded through the gears. The car went into a genuine four-wheel drift through the intersection of Billy Bishop Boulevard and Passchendaele St.

What the fuck happened? His cell phone beeped, and he tapped the button.

Hands-off phone systems were a necessity to a senior cop. They all had one in their personal cars.

"Yes," he barked.

"Can you come into the station?" asked Deighton, the dispatcher. "We're having a few problems here."

"What about Riley?" he asked shortly, concentrating on bulling his way through a red light.

While he wouldn't get a ticket, he didn't need a collision right now. The Vette was worth at least eighty grand at auction.

"Fuck, lady!"

He bellowed out the window, yet how could she know he was a cop on a call? No doubt the phones would be ringing.

"Riley says he has the scene pretty much secured," said the dispatcher. "We've got the chief coming in early, and we're calling people on their day off."

"Okay," he said. "Shit!"

He had to backtrack a little, but it was only ten blocks or so.

Finally he slammed over the bump of the sidewalk and down into the sloping tarmac parking area out in front of the stationhouse. He took the steps three at a time, barely noticing that for a man his age, he was in pretty good wind. That was one of the benefits of cycling. Phil had always loved racing on the open roads of Lennox as a young man. He started up a cycling club a few years ago, but not enough members came out consistently and so it folded.

The phones were ringing off the hook. Ben Deighton on dispatch looked frantic, as he pointed vehemently at a particular unit. As the sergeant picked it up, Deighton hit a lit-up button.

"Hello, Sergeant Oberon, Lennox Police Services," he said.

"This is Mayor Pedlar," he heard to his dismay.

Shit! This was getting bad.

"Um, this is a bad time Mayor," he told her. "I've always enjoyed our little talks, but..."

He was tempted to hang up on her. But that would be very bad politically, with the budget up for council's approval right now. And the woman tended to maunder on, vapid, insipid, banal and trite.

"Perhaps it's not an emergency," she blathered. "But the thing might be dangerous. It's pretty big."

"What is?" he interjected impatiently.

The station was deserted. Then Grunion came in wearing a jogging suit. Deighton intercepted her progress towards the side door leading to the locker rooms. She came over and Deighton put her on the phones.

Then all of a sudden Deighton ran out the front door! He wanted to yell at him, but that would have blasted out the Mayor's ears. Oberon wanted to shake off the Mayor so bad, like when someone buttonholes you at a fancy party and all you want to do is go for a shit...

Where's he going?

He motioned to Grunion, who looked bewildered. She just shrugged, and reached for a phone.

"It's some kind of strange animal. I don't now what exactly, perhaps a lizard, or maybe an iguana, like in the pet shop they had this one once..."

"Okay, ma'am. Can you tell me real quick what the problem is? We've got another situation and we need to prioritize," he broke into her spell.

The mayor seemed a little disoriented this morning. She gave the clear impression of someone waking up after taking a couple of tranquillizers.

"It's on the balcony, and it's really big, you see. That's the thing. If it got into one of the other apartments, it might hurt a child or take a pet cat, or something," she mumbled off into silence. "There's a lot of senior citizens in the building."

"I'll send a car around as soon as one's available," he began. "I've just been called in on my day off. I worked the night shift last night. So far I haven't really caught up with, uh; whatever's going on!"

"I suppose I'd better get ready for work," said the mayor.

In a revealing moment, just for a second; he caught the faint hint of despair in her tone.

"Some days it just doesn't seem worth it," he agreed.

It was the first time he ever felt any real sympathy for the bitch. Silly old woman. A fucking iguana! At a time like this.

"I wonder if the poor little thing is hungry, and so chilly first thing these days," she went on.

Would it never end?

"We'll get to you as soon as we can," he promised.

Finally the woman rang off.

"What's going on around here?" Grunion asked him first.

"Some crazy kid made a run for it at the loonie bin," he said shortly.

"Well, I just had a report of a big accident or incident at the curve on River Road," she advised Oberon. "Right where it goes between Buncor and Scow. They say vehicles are smashed up, lots of glass and blood, and no bodies! Witnesses claim a bunch of alligators or something."

"Oh, wow!" groaned Oberon. "Is this some kind of sick prank? You're sure?"

Were the guys playing some kind of crazy joke on old Sarge? It wasn't his birthday, it wasn't April Fool's. It wasn't his anniversary on the force...

Two figures strode up the steps into the building, and thankfully they were in uniform.

"We're pressed for time," he called out, breaking into their muttered conversation.

They looked up and diverted towards him.

"I need you guys to check out the Mayor's place," he instructed. "She's on the top of the condo..."

"Yeah, yeah, we know where she lives," grunted old Harold Lee, with a characteristic grimace.

Christ; was he still on the force? He looked about seventy.

Still; the man was a legend in some ways.

"Do we have a unit for these guys?" he asked Grunion.

"The PT," she called.

Oh yes; the Chrysler retro-wagon the school kids loved so much.

"The chief still hasn't shown up," she noted, and the phones were all still ringing, ringing, ringing.

Wordlessly; Lee and his partner, a man whose name Oberon temporarily couldn't

place, turned and headed out the doors again. That was typical Lee—probably picked up the partner on his way.

Those two were joined at the hip.

Now radios blared to life, as two or more units spoke to each other at once.

"Dispatch!" someone shouted over the radio. "I need backup!"

Then nothing but silence.

"Who was that?" asked Oberon.

She just shook her head, "I think maybe unit three..."

Anders and Zabrowski.

"Come in, unit three," called Grunion again, and again, then she tried seventeen, and

nine.

No luck, no response.

"What the hell is going on out there?" she gasped.

"Where are all of our units?" shouted Oberon, all of a sudden just losing it.

Grunion was staring at the log.

"Jesus Christ," she swore, uncharacteristically for her. "They're fucking everywhere!"

"Where the fucking hell did Deighton go?" he asked in disbelief. "That man's in some

serious trouble."

That's when the shots sounded right outside the building. The two of them bolted for the weapons lockup, but suddenly Oberon slid to a halt.

"Get one for me! I got to have a look."

He spun around and pelted back to the front of the building with its doors and full-length, bullet-proof, smoked-glass panels.

He could see nothing from the inner lobby, and going out through the first pair of doors, he couldn't see anything from the entrance foyer. Just the building opposite, his own car and some other cars...a few empty parking places...Grunion came running up with a shotgun. She handed him an unfamiliar weapon, a Colt .40 calibre automatic pistol.

"That's mine," she said. "Mag's full, and there's one up the spout."

He put two spare magazines in his left back jean pocket. They could hear radios squawking incoherently and phones ringing in the background, more faintly now that a sheet of thick glass separated them from the waiting room.

"How do we do this, Sarge?" she murmured quietly.

No trace of fear. Good for her. He cocked the gun, thinking.

His own heart had a little thumpity-thump to it, but he was confident enough in the training, and the ability to shoot first and answer questions later. But Phil had been on supervision for a long time, and they had no clear idea of what was going on.

"I'm going to go to the right. The PT was parked over to the right," and she nodded in the affirmative.

"Lee and what's his name," the sergeant murmured.

"Smith," she muttered. "They must have been right there."

"How many shots do you figure?" he asked.

"About four," she said.

He nodded.

"That's what I make it," and then he struck out for the light of the outer world.

Within seconds he stood on the porch, above the ten or twelve steps that led down to the parking area. To his right, there was a drop-off to a narrow patch of lawn, and a row of conifers which provided some shade and made the place look a little friendlier.

He could see the back ends of the cars parked there. He heard the door clunk shut.

"Your back's clean," she said. "I'm watching to the east."

"I see a foot," he reported. "Sticking out from behind the PT."

And something else too...a veritable sheet of blood, slowly pooling up and then making its way toward the sewer grating in the center of the lot. She took a quick look.

"Oh, Jesus," she said, then: "Okay."

"Okay, I'm going down now," and as he eased over the railing, and down onto the pine needle blanket by the base of the block wall, she watched in all directions, taking quick glances up at the edge of the roof and overhang.

"Good girl," he said, and then he did the same while she came over.

"I don't think it's a sniper," he told her, with a sudden shot of juice in the guts at the realization of how quick they were to move without thinking. "Those were pistol shots, I think..."

"He would have taken the shot by now," she agreed.

The sergeant was originally against women cops. Right now he was real proud of her, in spite of his own imminent crisis. He eased out into the parking lot, weapon held high, pointed up but ready to go.

"It's Smith...Lee's not here...Lee's not here," he said, totally befuddled.

"Lee's not here," he said again.

"Where the fuck is everybody?" she asked in confusion. "The chief should have been here half an hour ago, according to Deighton."

"We have to leave him. We'd better get back inside and try to get a picture of what's happening."

The sergeant didn't hesitate. Smith was dead, bitten in two almost, by something that cut a huge semicircle out of his middle. And where the hell was Lee?

Was Lee the one doing the shooting? A man like that, it was hard to believe he couldn't hit what he was shooting at. But then where the hell would he go? Off in the distance they could hear sirens. Fire, ambulance, and yes; cop sirens.

Phil grabbed for the radio.

"Riley! Deighton! What's going on out there?"

But all he got was a squeal as the people were all talking at once.

Sergeant Oberon desperately called into the microphone, holding the button down for long seconds, shouting, "Senior men call in, all the rest of you guys separate into frequencies, Jesus, I told you all this fifty times!"

More squeals, and ominously, during one short patch of clean signal they heard a shot and a scream. Grunion hovered by the bank of phones, all lit up and ringing to beat hell.

She just picked one.

"Lennox Police," there was simply no time for her to respect the protocol of giving her full name. "Who?"

Suddenly she beckoned to Oberon.

"Get over here! It's Chief Ethercott from Schmedleyville."

He grabbed the set.

"Oberon."

"What's going on up there, Phil?" the chief was frantic. "I've got giant lizards all over the place down here! They're breaking into cars and buildings! We're running out of ammo. Can you help us?"

"We've got the same or, or, or, a similar problem here, Chief," he reported. "Chief O'Shaughnessey seems to be overdue. My dispatcher just ran out of the place. All of my units are committed. We've got gunshots all over the place, sirens, most of them seem stationary. I can hear them all over town when I go outside. The phones are jammed!"

"Call the fucking militia or something! How many RCMP guys up there?" Ethercott yelled at him in sheer panic.

"Shit! Maybe six," allowed Phil. "I think one or two are away on vacation."

Suddenly the chief hung up, and Oberon couldn't do anything for the man anyway.

"All right. We're going to use the cell phones. Call the militia. Phone book. Get the phone book. Call the army next, call the TV station and the radio stations and tell the people to stay indoors. Call the Chemical Emergency Teams, but tell them to standby!

We have to assess the situation," and then he just sat down; weak in the knees.

"Otherwise it's just more casualties..." and then Phil broke down. "Oh, my God."

He sat there with tears rolling down his cheeks.

"Oh, my god, oh, my God," he kept saying.

Radio signals overlapped, like bubbles, the zone of interference predictable, yet when the new analog-to-digital conversion system was installed, this had all somehow been overlooked. There was no scandal at the time. It was all hushed up.

Grunion was too busy trying to call someone, anyone, to comfort him right now. Tires screeched to a halt in the parking lot outside, and two men came running in wearing hunting clothes. They had rifles slung over their shoulders. Technically, this was totally illegal. The sergeant and Grunion were prepared to overlook it under the circumstances.

"My name's Chan, and this is my buddy Don," but Phil didn't care.

He straightened up. A deep, shuddering breath went through him.

"Stay here and watch those front doors," he told them. "It is extremely important that Constable Grunion establish contact with the outside world. Right now, I need you guys on guard duty."

They nodded okay. He stationed them behind the reception counter, rifles leveled in a businesslike manner and pointing out at the front door.

"Don't shoot any people, okay? Just lizards," he ordered; receiving nods in return.

"Having any luck?" he asked Constable Grunion, aware of the sob in his voice as it caught momentarily.

She shook her head in frustration.

The sergeant allowed himself the luxury of another long, deep breath.

"Whew," he said, letting it all out again.

He rubbed his eyes with a handkerchief, surprised by his outburst, and also surprised by how quick a man could get a grip on himself.

"Unit seventeen!" someone called in the clear. "I'm out of ammo! I'm surrounded!"

Grunion pushed the keys of the desk unit. The computer terminal screen scrolled to a notation. Seventeen was about six blocks away by a midtown shopping plaza. More squeals from the ten or twelve year-old antiquated and obsolete radio system. The municipality was one of the first in the country to go digital. Unfortunately, recent budget requests to upgrade the system were turned down due to high salaries, mandated but not funded by the province.

Oberon grabbed the microphone.

"We're going to try to get to you, seventeen!"

"Get here quick," moaned the man on the other end of the ether.

Then there was nothing but silence.

"Landlines must be down," reported Grunion. "I'm not getting a tone."

The sudden silence was worse than the ringing. They all stared at the phones briefly.

She grabbed her cell phone from its belt pouch.

"Some of the repeater stations must be down," called Don from his end of the counter.

"We weren't having much luck earlier," added Chan.

"No answer from seventeen," advised Grunion.

"Okay, keep trying. One, I'm going to change and gear up for big game. Two, I'm going to check the holding cells, and three, you can gear up, and four, we'll see what's going on in the vicinity."

She nodded firmly, and he turned to go into the hallway leading to the locker rooms. His footsteps pelted off into the corridor, the big steel door swinging softly shut behind him.

"I've got a pickup with a roll bar," said Chan. "You guys can stand in the back and we'll go looking for more lizards."

Suddenly a voice came out of the radio speakers.

"...listen to me. There's big lizards all over the place. School buses on Maxine Street...only about three rounds left...(Squeals from other radios cutting in again.)

"...hold on, hold on. Janey's gone...her gun's out there...two small lizards on the hood of the car...power lines down in the south end, from Lexmouth Street to King George the Fifth...car smashed...won't start..."

Grunion's finger hovered over the button, trying to build a picture in her mind.

More squealing. There must be somebody left out there. The screen on the terminal to the left showed the list of civilian employees and their phone numbers. Was Deighton calling them? Was he telling them all to get in here? Or telling them to stay put? Even at this hour, there were usually a couple of civilians in the building. The security-bonded cleaning staff and office people started work pretty early sometimes.

"Okay, here's the momma one again...who's in the station?" came the calm, flat tones of a male voice she didn't recognize.

She punched the button.

"Grunion and Oberon,"' she told him real quick.

"I remember you. Tell my wife and kids I love 'em," and then he was gone.

Nothing but squealing on the radio, like all the radio transmit buttons were being held down with tape or something.

"Riley here!" came through suddenly. "Did you get all that, Grunion?"

"Yes," she blurted, then released the button.

Time was precious, without a second to waste. The most horrid screaming came over the radio, a high-pitched shriek that seemed impossible to drag out of a human throat.

Mercifully, the signal was cut off abruptly and horribly.

Riley was back.

"I've got four officers down. Willis and I are holed up in the top of a house. These creatures are on the roofs. They're coming in the second and third-floor windows. There's hundreds of them..." then the signal just cut out.

"There's plenty of 'em out there," Don told her with a grimace. "We shot three pretty big ones on the way here, and Chan's neighbour got a twelve-footer at dawn."

"That's up to the Sarge," she said. "But thank God you guys came in."

Should she call the Army? How? The phone book had a 1-800 number for a recruiting office in London. At this time of day, she doubted if they were in. She punched at the number anyway. She stood there a moment, listening to the ring-tone as it forlornly repeated over and over again. Then their machine picked it up. Grunion couldn't think of any rational message to leave them, so she hit the 'end' button.

After a time, Sarge came back with a prisoner and a janitor.

They were loaded with boxes and boxes of ammunition.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Schwartzie was so hot Les just couldn't help himself...

Schwartzie was so hot Les just couldn't help himself. Now his heart ached with despair and a kind of narcissistic rage. Just the sight of her sad little figure, standing there so disconsolately, illuminated by the pale yellow glimmer of the overhead lights. As she turned and moved towards the door of the building, Les drove away seething inside. It was an indescribable mixture of love, hate, anger, shame, and pity. Les would always remember her like that, standing there like an idol in some deserted temple, brooding in the rain.

Yes; he felt a tug of something at his heartstrings, an acknowledgement that they could have really had something. Something special. In some other time, in some other place. In some other world. Maybe in some other existence.

The evening began well enough. It was a surprising revelation to Les, these feelings of affection that he felt for Schwartzie. Les was the perfect gentleman, kind, considerate and thoughtful. He felt incredibly, horribly protective towards her.

For some reason it hurt inside. The way he really cared about her, and she always took him for a lecher.

Why me?

Oh, Lord, why me?

There was no doubt the attraction was sexual, but what Schwartzie had never, ever understood, right from the beginning, was that she was special. She was the one—all that was gone now. Les instinctively understood that he was ruined for other women now.

Deep in the pit of his stomach, he wondered if he would be alone for the rest of his life. That possibility loomed very large and very real to him now.

Les could see his mistake. It was staking everything on the one main chance.

She walked into the newsroom. His first day on the new job. It was love at first sight. He just couldn't help it. And now this! She shouldn't have told him. He raged inwardly at the thought that she...well, surely she had rejected his advances, no doubt about it, but why hadn't Schwartzie—that's the way he would always think of her—why hadn't Mackenzie told him?

Why hadn't she told him that she was a man? A man only part-way through the long and involved surgical sex-change process.

While Les understood that women like to be pursued, seduced, why hadn't he, she or it told him? It would have saved them both a lot of grief in the end. The terrible thing to Les is that he still loved her—he, she, it—but he just couldn't do it. If he married Schwartzie he would be...he knew he would be impotent for the rest of his life.

There was no blame or fault. Schwartzie really hadn't done anything wrong. Born a semi-functional hermaphrodite, Schwartzie had a vagina and a uterus. It was the vestigial penis that had to go. She could have babies and everything. She was everything he'd always wanted in a woman. It was just too weird. But she was raised as a boy. She was a strong, intelligent, independent, powerful woman who just happened to have the weirdest-looking sex organs Les could ever imagine. She hadn't actually shown him, but it was easy enough to recall something from a Hustler mag. She assured him, that after several more operations, it would be perfectly normal except for a couple of little scars, all but invisible under her pubic hair.

The two talked long into the night. Perhaps imagination was worse than reality, but the truth was he just really, really didn't want to know. He didn't want to know.

That's why Purvis was driving around in circles, all over town, all night long so far.

Sooner or later someone would find out. Sooner or later the truth would come out.

This was a small town. Southern Ontario was a surprisingly small place sometimes.

He couldn't bear the thought of the talk...all the talk.

His folks would freak out.

The lit windows of the neighbourhoods attested to something; the fact that everyone was busy with their own little lives. But they had time to look outwards once in a while, and gossip was rampant in this town. Just as it surely must be in all others.

He wanted Schwartzie more than anything he had ever wanted in his entire life.

He just couldn't do it. Les hated himself. She was terribly hurt. He knew that much. If only she didn't actually like him! If only she could have remained steadfast.

But the flesh was weak; even as her spirit was strong.

God! He thought in a bizarre flash of hysteria. For some reason the urge to laugh insanely was quite strong at this moment.

If only she hadn't told me...God, if only she hadn't told me.

Chapter Forty-Nine

Brubaker was not a happy camper first thing in the morning...

"Argh!"

Brubaker was not a happy camper first thing in the morning. When his phone rang two or three times, he had to get up, throw off the blankets, and practically run to the far end of the room. His basement room was over thirty feet long. The only phone jack was at the west end. His bed was at the east end, placed right beside the heater outlet and well away from the semi-permanent puddle in the southeast corner of the room.

Raining all night. Two inches of fuckin' water in here at dawn.

It rang seven times and stopped. The voice-message feature had kicked in. But almost immediately, or so it seemed to the groggy Bru, it began ringing again.

"Jesus H. Christ," grumbled Brubaker, who often wondered what the 'H' stood for.

He stumbled out of bed for the second time and ran for it.

"What?" he blurted through tense jaws.

Bru was a bad call for early morning telemarketers.

"It's Nibbles! Get your ass down here! And bring your bow and some arrows," his little buddy yelled.

Stark, naked fear was unmistakable in his voice.

A short, sharp jab of excitement hit him right in the midriff.

"What?" gasped Brubaker, not sure he'd heard it right. "Are you out of your mind?"

"There's a big fucking crocodile in the back yard and it almost ate my mom!" Nibbles bellowed. "I'm not fucking shitting you, this is real! Get down here."

Bru could hear Nibbles' ma, Bonnie, in the background. Her voice was high and strident.

"Why don't the cops answer, Dale?"

(Nibbles' mom was the only one who ever used his real name.)

"How the hell would I know?"

Nibbles' loud and impatient voice could be heard answering, as Bru's befuddled mind tried to grasp it.

"Two minutes," promised Bru with resignation.

Something real was going on over there. Running down the street, even a hundred metres, with a bow and arrow didn't seem like such a good idea. Chuck strung his new bowstring on to his green and black, re-curved, wood and fibre-glass bow, and tossed the rotten old quiver into the back of his minivan. As some kind of afterthought, he put in the other three bows, all with strings hooked up on one end and wound around them, and another dozen arrows, tied together with a leather thong, and then he left.

This way, there was less chance of someone calling the dirty, no-good Lennox Cops on him.

Would the hate, not the most pleasant way to live, would it never end?

He drove down the street, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.

Pulling up into the end of the driveway, Nibbles and his mother were visible in the front window. Normally he would have gone to the back door, but they were beckoning him to come in the front.

The startling realization came; that for the first time in his life, he'd left the house barefoot. Huh!

"Take a look at this," said Nibbles, grabbing his arm and pulling him through the living room and into the kitchen.

A pleasant, but fairly small room; it had a bay window overlooking the back yard, the back fence and the public garden plots which were leased from the city by apartment dwellers. These were usually the working poor, the elderly, immigrants, and guys on welfare.

"Where?" asked Brubaker impatiently.

"There," said Nibbles, pointing to the shrubs along the east side of the yard.

There was something big and dark and shiny in there, camouflaged like a World War II ME 163 rocket-fighter, but it had a foot.

"Holy crap," said Brubaker. "That's frickin' huge! Did you call the cops?"

Nibbles nodded vigourously.

"We've been trying for half an hour," said Bonnie. "Their line is dead."

"Okay. Try again. Okay, Bonnie? It's probably a good thing you called me," he said.

Right then the creature, which looked to be about fifteen feet long, began to move towards the back of the yard.

"That's not a crocodile. That's not an alligator," he told them. "What the hell is that?"

They just stared out of the window in awful fascination.

"Fuck! It's a school day," Bru gasped.

He bolted for the front room and the exit.

Bru whipped open the side door of the van, slung the quiver on his shoulder, and notched up an arrow. He drew the string back about halfway, then held the arrow in place with finger pressure.

"We'd better keep an eye on that thing," he told Nibbles, who stood at the half-open front door. "Any luck on the phone?"

Nibbles shook his head, looking back into the room, consulting with Bonnie.

"Just stay in the house," he told Nibbles. "If I have to shoot it, I don't want the arrow to miss, and bounce off the ground and hit someone."

Drawing the string to its fullest extent, Brubaker moved cautiously up the driveway.

That was one big fucking animal. He didn't have it in view. Stalking was an old skill, perhaps grown rusty over the years. The neighbour's house to his left was silent and the car was gone. Anne's kids were probably in day care. He moved to the right, up against the wall of Nibbles' house. He went around the corner, and peered over the gate. He could just see the tail of the animal slithering along. It was about to disappear from view. Suddenly Nibbles was right there with him, reaching out and pulling on the string that operated the gate latch.

"Shhh," noted Bru, with a wry head-shake at Nibbles' reluctance to miss anything.

The other nodded. Once the gate was open, Bru went through it and hid behind the corner of the garden shed. He searched the bushes visually, and found what had to be it; a dark sheen visible through the barren branches and still-clinging autumn foliage.

Brubaker was not a hunter. He preferred the camera. It had fewer moral ramifications. He once shot a robin with a BB pistol at extreme range, not expecting to even hit the thing. He literally pointed the muzzle two feet above its head. But he was getting real good by then.

He really didn't expect to hit it.

But he must have. It started walking around in circles, with its head wobbling around, and he felt so fucking shitty after that one, he never did it again. He was about seventeen at the time. A couple of guys in a canoe, and a case of beer. Fun up to a point.

Bru studied the layout. If he missed, the arrow would be stopped by the neighbour's garage. Holding the bow ready, the drawn string up near his cheekbone, he approached very cautiously. It was evidently aware of him, for it made a sudden turn.

He fired without hesitation.

A hit!

Right in behind the left shoulder.

It began to twist, and turn, and whip around like a mad thing. Over and over it rolled, trying to get at the intolerable pain in its side. It must have thought some invisible thing was attacking it. It kept trying to bite at its side. Bru stepped back right smartly, almost bowling over his little buddy Nibbles.

Bru was having a hell of a time getting another arrow out of the quiver.

"Fuck," he bellowed. "What's going on?"

Bru was livid with anger, reaching awkwardly over his shoulder and not having much luck.

"They're all falling out the bottom!" shouted Nibbles.

"Well, fuckin' yank one out the God-damn bottom!" yelled Bru.

Finally Nibbles handed him an arrow, and stood there with a half dozen in his hand.

Brubaker flung off the quiver in disgust, noting a few more arrows in there.

"Get them," he instructed.

Bru fired again, and again, and again, as Nibbles stuck arrows into the soft turf beside Charles where he could reach them easily.

"These fuckers are hard to kill," he told Nibbles, standing there in horror.

Watching open-mouthed, Nibbles saw blood everywhere, sprayed all over by the thing's deadly thrashing. He could feel the spray. Brubaker was speckled in red dots, running down in little streams now.

"Jesus Christ, Brubaker!" yelled Nibbles.

"Stand back," said Bru, and the tail came whipping through, although it missed their ankles by inches.

"Don't go near it," he advised, as the thing seemed to be running out of steam.

***

"Well, aren't you the fucking hero!" grinned Nibbles.

"Are you kidding? I'll probably get charged with something," said Brubaker in potent sarcasm.

"What?" queried Nibbles' mom in disbelief.

She stood in the yard, a knitted sweater over her shoulders, arms crossed underneath it to ward off the chill. Bonnie was disgusted, but simply couldn't look away.

"Don't forget, I'm paranoid and delusional," he reminded them. "Not even human, really."

"No one believes that, Chuck," Bonnie gasped, shaking a little with the cold and probably a certain amount of upset.

"Well, you can testify to that effect at the inquest," he said.

"What inquest?" they both said at once.

"Next time they take me to the loonie bin, I'm gonna make 'em shoot me dead," he told them in no uncertain terms.

"Nothing's worth that," Bonnie said in dismay. "Chuck, you have to get over this."

"When them creeps are gone, and we have the OPP in here, then I may sleep a little better at night," he told them. "Mind you, the Nassagewaya people may have something to say about it."

One of their people was a martyr to OPP bungling and former Premier Mike Smegma's offhand racist remarks. Brubaker was still feeling the effects of his early-morning angriness. He brought himself up short. Try not to shit on these people.

It wasn't their fault. Maybe it was just low blood sugar or something.

"Is it really that bad around here, Chuck?" she asked.

"This is the dumbest, creepiest cop-force in the whole damned country," he vowed with conviction.

Suddenly she was dry-retching, and turning away.

"Go in the house, mom," Nibbles suggested; perhaps more aware of the little nuances of Bru's moods.

"Sorry to drag you out of bed for no reason," he snipped with a grin, his expression one of wonder and humour.

Nibbles' relief was a palpable thing. He sagged all over; but especially at the knees.

Bru just grinned.

"Thank God you put some pants on," guffawed Nibbles. "Tee, hee!"

"I see your point," Chuck admitted.

A smiling Bru was a thing to behold.

He felt like Conan the Barbarian at this juncture. Bonnie caught her breath, looking at Brubaker, all two metres of him. Bow in hand; breathing like a race horse, no sweat, as calm and cool and collected as a cucumber.

Was this the same guy?

Nibbles looked on in silent contemplation, unable to articulate what he felt or saw.

Brubaker...Brubaker was magnificent...in a virile, masculine sort of a way, of course.

"I'll try the phone again," she offered and headed for the door.

"What's with all these sirens?" asked Nibbles.

Brubaker had a thought. His smile gone now, he cautiously approached the dying critter. Standing well back, he wandered around it, looking at the thing, studying it.

"What the fuck are you?" he asked in astonishment.

Much to his surprise, he got an answer.

"Muh...muh," it croaked in the saddest, most pain-wracked, and lowest little voice, a voice he would remember in dreams for the rest of his life.

The creature crouched there with just the slightest suggestion of breathing, as its sides rippled in and out.

"I'm not your mother," he told it, stepping back, the response torn out of him in sheer awe.

"Then...you...must...be...God," the thing observed.

It finally died with a horrendous death rattle, the ragged breath coming out of its mouth in a horrid stench.

He stood there with his jaw hanging.

"Jesus...fucking...Christ..." breathed Bru. "What...the...fuck...?"

After a long silence, he let the tension go on the string and lowered the bow left- handed to his side. He stood there for a good two minutes. Chuck rubbed at his whiskers absently. He hadn't even splashed water on his face yet.

"I don't like this at all," Chuck finally concluded.

Then he edged closer and studied the animal some more.

"Get me a big knife," he asked.

Nibbles scurried to the kitchen door.

He brought Bru a good-sized kitchen carving knife. Brubaker studied the creature intently. Placing the tip at a certain point just ahead of the back leg, where there was a hint of swelling, he shoved it in, and pulled down with a grimace.

There was a fair amount of blood, and then Nibbles saw it. He saw what looked like tennis balls, all covered and smeared in gore, and goo, and a milky, mucus-like sloppy substance.

"Eggs," said Bru in answer to Nibbles' unspoken question.

"Does that mean there's more of them?" gaped Nibbles.

Brubaker nodded uncertainly.

"We don't know if they're fertilized, or what," he added. "I can never remember the difference between ovoviparous and viviparous."

Bru's voice trailed off uncertainly.

"The one means that it lays eggs, and the other means it brings forth live young," explained Brubaker.

There was nothing but silence from Nibbles, who was transfixed by all the blood on Bru's hands.

"I'm really starting to hate this," Chuck concluded. "Got a smoke? I kind of forgot mine."

Chapter Fifty

Thunder in the Mountains...

'Thunder in the Mountains' stood at the end of the line. Twelve of them out here, holding against the foes. They had a shooting line with a pair of guns on the flanks.

They were watching, waiting, and backing each other up.

"We'd better not go too deep," he shouted, and the eight men and three women held up.

"There's one!"

Ka-boom! Ka-boom! He blasted away with his pump-action shotgun, but it skittered away into the bushes. His shoulder pounded with a delicious ache as he watched over his party.

"You missed," Washington George told the man to his left.

"He'll be back," came a terse reply.

Gordon Whitecomb was a good shooter. Not like him to miss.

"The end of my gun seems awful heavy," Gord replied in answer to his unspoken thoughts. "Got to really drag it up there, now."

All of them were tiring. They couldn't keep this up forever.

Chief George found it exhilarating. But there were moments of stark terror, like when three massive creatures came zooming in on the flank. All they could do was to circle back in behind, and retreat, turning and shooting as they went. Luckily; when all guns were brought to bear, it was enough. One massive carcass, and a couple of heavy blood trails showed that.

"Here they come!" yelled Cleve.

Pop-pop-pop, ka-pow, ka-pow; on and on and on like thunder in a winter snowstorm.

More of the creatures writhed on the ground, and he waited for a moment.

"Big one to your right," someone bellowed, and he turned with his partner and they both blasted it at close range. It skidded up to a halt, almost hitting them as they hastily backed away.

Cleve shot it again, then put the gun down to clear a breech.

"Damn," he said.

The chief clicked his weapon closed, and watched the animal painfully drag itself away. This one was a goner.

"All right, how's the ammo?" Gordon's voice called from the left.

"Not good," another voice bellowed.

"Anybody hurt?" he heard.

Four or five quick voices all said, "No."

"We'd better withdraw while we can," Cleve's quiet and confident voice, sounded at his ear in suggestion.

Chief George, or, 'Thunder in the Mountains,' to his closest friends, agreed.

"I think you're right," said the chief. "All right people, we'd better back out the way we came! And let's boogie because those things are really unhappy right now."

Without instruction, two pairs formed up an advance party, with a small group in the middle like a circle, and the pair of Chiefs in the rearguard position. They stayed ten metres back from the ring of the main group. The vehicles were fifty metres away. And a hundred metres on the other side of that, it was the first block of the Nauvoo neighbourhood, with at least a hundred homes, filled with old folks, young mothers, infants, and school-children.

Somewhere off to the northeast, maybe a kilometre and a half away, he heard the rattle of gunfire. He realized there were snowflakes touching the tip of his nose, cold and wet.

Suddenly the chief spun around. The timing felt good, or bad. It was an impulse.

He waved the gun in the air, and leapt in a kind of heathen, savage joy.

"Ea-aa-eaugh-ugh," he shouted to the trees. "Yah-yah-yaaaah-hh-ah."

He sucked in a huge breath and shouted as he had never in his life shouted before. He shouted so loud he could feel the tissues tearing inside of him.

"Come and get it you mother-fuckers!"

Suddenly all the group were doing it.

Provoked, the lizard-people struck suddenly and the group was firing again.

Boom-boom-boom-ka-pop-kapow, bangedey-bangedey-bang.

It was over as suddenly as it began, the thin smoke clearing in the early morning breeze. A thin blue line of dead and dying creatures writhed in the underbrush.

The line held. His chest heaved with the emotions, the rush of blood in his veins coursing through him like life itself. Where were the bad knees and sore hip now? Chief George grabbed the arm of a man knocked off his feet, but hopefully not too badly hurt.

"Johnny! Get your buddy to the trucks and start them up, all of them! Watch his back," he shouted.

He watched them go. Gordon and Cleve covered their backs while the others waited, eyes front.

"Here they come again," someone reported.

"Brace yourselves!" he said.

Then he started his war cry, yipping and yelling at the enemy.

In his mind's eye, just for one brief second, he saw it all. It was a vision; of another time and place, against another enemy. For one brief moment of time, he knew this was how his great-great-great-grandfather lived and died. This was how he fought at the Battle of the Fallen Timbers.

His warrior's heart reached out through time and space and touched him.

And it was good.

A picture formed in his mind, the face of a man he had never known.

The magical power coursed through him, animating him with a joy like he had never experienced.

His heart flashed with fire and song.

"Noongom nwii-nib!" he sang out into the trees. "It is indeed a good day to die!"

"Kill all of the creatures," he shouted, face all stiff and wooden with anger and outrage.

And then, bizarre in sound and tone: "Not on my watch, you little fucking varmints!"

He had never felt such anger. He had never before had the chance to let it all out. He saw that now.

For a brief moment of time, they were laughing together as one, facing death side by side and shoulder to shoulder, in the cold, damp woodlands of their home.

Chapter Fifty-One

Ryebaum stood in the middle of the road...

Ryebaum stood in the middle of the road, holding Stevie in his arms. He was covered in blood from head to toe. Little Stevie hung limp, a dead weight in his arms. Rick was oblivious, and uncaring about the ache in his shoulders and neck. One of the baby's legs was missing.

Chan brought the vehicle to a halt.

"Sir! May we help you, sir? We need to get you off the street," Grunion called from her perch clinging to the roll bar.

Standing there, she had a clear field of fire in all directions, as Oberon clambered over spare wheels and the junk in the back, letting down the tailgate when he got over to it.

She covered Phil as he put aside the shotgun loaded with solid slugs, more usually used to take crack-house doors off their hinges. Dropping down, the sergeant cautiously approached the gentleman. Everywhere you looked, there were signs of devastation in the background.

"Let me help you, sir," he said gently.

Phil was aware that to try to take the child right now would almost certainly spark what could be a potentially bad reaction, very time-consuming.

And they had no time.

"May I help you into the truck, sir?" he asked again, slowly and gently reaching out to Ryebaum's other shoulder.

Thankfully the man seemed passive. Hollow, sorrow-laden eyes turned and locked on his. The man stood there, rocking slowly back and forth. The disheveled hair, the man's unshaven face, the fact he had no shoes, told their own story. Clothes hastily put on. Dried-up stuff in the corners of his mouth, crust around the eyes. Dehydration, shock, trauma. Almost unrecognizable, yet Phillip Oberon was pretty sure he knew this guy from somewhere.

"Please let us help you, sir," he tried again.

This was an emergency situation of unknown size and scope, but there was a time for patience. A little compassion now, could help this man a lot later on. The sergeant gently patted the man's shoulder to establish a warm and reassuring contact.

"We must get you off of the street," he told the man. "We'll take you to the hospital."

Grunion was weeping, but blinking back tears to try to watch the perimeter. Chan sat impassively waiting, with a Glock 16 in his lap. The other guy, Don, held his rifle leveled at the surroundings.

"We better get a move on, Sergeant," Don suggested through the passenger window.

"I just want to know what's going on," the man said.

Oberon tried to lead him to the truck, and finally the man shuffled forwards.

"Let me help you, sir," he said in a confident but compassionate tone.

He had seen people at a time of loss a million times, and it was always the same. You never got used to it. All he could offer was gentleness.

"I just want to know what's going on," said Rybaum.

They helped him into the back, never letting go of the baby. Finally he slumped down in the corner.

"I just want to know what's going on!" howled Ryebaum in agony, like a man whose very guts were being torn out of him.

"Sarge!" shouted Grunion in anguish, and he grabbed the shotgun in reflex, and spinning around, raised it to fire.

She was already shooting, but with that little pop-gun...

"Go! Go! Go!" he barked.

Gratitude filled his heart as the first rounds left the muzzle and he heard the truck's tires peeling out. The beauty, the symmetry of it all made his smile one of unfeigned and sincere joy.

"Come and get it, you bastards!" he grunted, his heart literally stopped in his chest as Sergeant Phillip Oberon kept squeezing the trigger. He took one last breath.

This was the proper way for a cop to die. With his boots on and his gun blazing.

Then it was on him.

Chapter Fifty-Two

Barnes was late for work when he ran into the traffic jam...

Fred Barnes lived in the classic suburban setting. His morning commute was only about twenty minutes, if he didn't stop for coffee, and if he drove at or about the speed limit. He closed up the white-painted front door of the cinnamon brown, brick-fronted, four-level split where he lived with his wife Dolores.

Then he hopped into his grey sedan.

He backed out of the driveway, scene of so many good memories. Like the games of catch with their son Jonathan as a teeny-bopper. Past the clump of lilac where daughter Debbie and, 'the newest member of the family,' Brad, posed for their wedding pictures. Barnes went out past the rural mailbox, and onto the two-lane blacktop which wound through the prim lakeshore village of Comelichmie Bluffs.

Fred was impatient this morning. Dolores slept in, and then she needed help with her bag. A recent colostomy was quite frankly adding a level of complication to both of their lives. Along with the depression she suffered, it was a real crimp in her daily activities. Having to give up her job at the walk-in clinic, where she once earned a small salary on the reception desk; was a real blow to his wife. He hoped she would find a new reason to live; and new ways to get involved with life. To be out there helping people, who quite frankly needed her.

Barnes was in a bit of a hurry. The strident chirp from the front wheels of the grey Honda sedan attested to the pressure he felt. After a lifetime of endless deadlines, he knew he would eventually pay some kind of price. He didn't care to speculate as to what that price would be. Barnes liked his quiet. One good reason not to turn on the radio.

Sometimes he even shut off the phone.

'Stress is a silent killer,' as one of his previous editorial headlines read. Having written that, Barnes would have thought he was okay with it; and coping just fine. Being late ten or twenty minutes was stressful, but the news would go out. His people might make jokes if he walked in late; with what sounded like an excuse.

It's just that Dolores hated him telling anyone about her affliction, and the fact was; no one at the office was really welcome inside of his personal, family life. He owed his family that much, after dragging them to a dozen different cities during the formative period of his career. They were all so young. Back then, he was filled with enthusiasm, and working his way up the ladder.

Yes, moving the kids was a tough thing for them, but they turned out fine, and thank the Good Lord for that. Too much craziness in the world these days. Like many a parent, when the kids got to a certain age, he began to think of their future. He felt a sense of concern. Perhaps a kind of dread.

Not exactly naked fear or anything like that.

He had a lot of confidence in his kids, but there were too many temptations, too many potential pitfalls.

"Without temptation, there is no virtue."

That damned Brubaker again.

So wise in his words, so immature and confrontational in his behaviour. At least that was the impression Barnes got from his letters. Brubaker pushed his buttons, and made him mad. Barnes could live without the slanderous way he attacked the police, the courts, the municipal government, any government or authority figures.

Brubaker called him a few names.

You didn't do that in writing.

No one ever did that. Brubaker was unique in that sense.

It seemed calculated.

Not like some hockey mom just losing it; a momentary aberration.

Fred had a lot of power, and everyone wanted a piece of it.

Everyone wanted his time. That's where the objectivity came in. It was a kind of litmus test. An editor with a grudge could cause a lot of unnecessary harm.

The classic, official line was that it represented, 'compassion.'

Sometimes he wondered if it wasn't also a kind of cop-out. Did it mean he couldn't get involved? And sometimes it wasn't too pleasant. It felt like sitting in judgment on people, when a story just had to go in the paper. As often as not on the front page.

He knew people got hurt. It was a hard call, sometimes.

Sometimes it really did feel like, 'the odious arts of the informer,' or whatever.

To really bust someone. Like the unfortunate Mrs. Achmed-O'Malley, for example. She used to be a Member of the Provincial Legislature, and a Cabinet Minister to boot. Mrs. Achmed-O'Malley had a lot of friends, some of whom would be more or less well-balanced than others. As an editor you could make a lot of enemies without getting personal. Truth is, everyone took it personal. When someone freaked out on you, you never knew just how far it would go. Sometimes you wondered what they were even capable of. The plain truth was, she shouldn't have lied!

Why should Fred feel guilty about that?

Brubaker was as mouthy as all heck, and deep inside lurked a heart of gold! Always fighting for the disabled, in the worst possible way. Anything short of violence.

He had to admit, it took a while to figure that one out. They were focusing more on those issues at the paper lately, precisely because Brubaker just seemed so darned incompetent.

Fred felt a small grin steal over his face.

Barnes had seen it all.

From the soft-spoken science teacher who showed up with a baseball bat at the front desk, to the people whose last name was the same as a convicted felon in a news story.

They were slightly apologetic; but all their friends were phoning them. The mistakes in the grocery ads. Apologies, retractions, and lawsuits threatened both ways.

Fred Barnes had seen a real slice of human nature.

Yet he was not cynical.

He didn't think he was cynical.

As he drove, he was kind of pushing it, but he knew there were rarely cops on this stretch. At this time of day, they would almost inevitably be attending to a traffic accident closer to town. The speed limit was technically sixty kilometres per hour, but people usually did seventy-five or even eighty. Barnes was doing about eighty-five today. But he wasn't drunk. He didn't do drugs. Visibility was good. He knew the road, and the car was only four years old.

Not like some of the rattletraps that persisted despite clean air tests and safety checks mandated by the Ministry of Transportation.

He'd just had new brake pads and shoes put on.

"What the..."

Up ahead he saw brake-lights and a long line-up of vehicles. They were stopped dead in the middle of the road, surrounded by farm fields, trees, and ditches. No intersections up ahead. Slowing, he gently cussed in the cute little swear-words he used. These were the only ones he allowed himself. To swear eroded his credibility, and to a newspaper editor, credibility is his most precious asset.

The next intersection was a half a mile ahead.

His respectability, his impartiality was all he had as a defense. His professionalism was all that kept him out of trouble. The company hated being sued. It's expensive and the results were always uncertain. Hence out-of-court settlements. Too much of that sort of thing could be hard on a career. Being late wasn't the worst thing that could happen to a guy, he thought patiently.

"Sugar! Someone must have gone off the road," he muttered, gently braking to a halt behind a big red work truck.

It was last in line. Difficult to see around, and impossible to see over, with ladders and bins and racks on the back. There was no snow yet, what with the global warming and all. The road was dry. What was happening? Everyone was aware of all the drunk drivers, but lately there was a real spate of them.

Fred had no idea of what was going on up there. There were no sirens, nothing visible from here. Fred edged up closer to the truck, pulling out to the left a little to see around it.

The oncoming lane was clear. The line of vehicles was pretty long, maybe ten or twelve vehicles all jammed up for some reason. The dashboard clock stared him in the face, a persistent reminder that he was late.

All of a sudden, for no reason at all, Mr. Fred Barnes snapped. There is no other way to describe it. While he couldn't see what was happening, the road up ahead was clear.

Normally, he would be concerned if someone was in the ditch, but there was plenty of help on hand and he was late. Barnes wasn't in the habit of carrying a camera, so all he wanted to do was get around these people. No one else was trying to bypass the distraction, or whatever it was. The road ahead was still clear, with no oncoming traffic.

He eased out and began to speed up to about forty kilometres an hour. As he cruised up alongside, everyone at the back of the line was in their vehicles; but the front couple of cars had no drivers.

'Good, they're getting some help,' he thought.

Rising impatience made him do it.

He took a quick glance to the right, but there was nothing to be seen as he punched the gas pedal down in gratitude.

He was doing seventy-five kilometres an hour when he suddenly realized that there was a man, "some crazy whacko," he blurted angrily.

Time suddenly stood stock-still.

There was a man who leapt out; standing in the road and madly waving his arms to warn him about something. Fred stomped on the brakes as hard as he could, gasping in dismay, white knuckles on the steering wheel.

He waited.

'Whomp-crack-tsh-tsh!' came the shocking noise as the man's face came through the windshield. Barnes careened down the road, barely conscious of the fact that his brakes had gone right to the floor and there was no hydraulic fluid pushing on the calipers.

Fred Barnes had just killed a man.

In horror he stared at the shattered face and bloody drops falling on his knees. He held the car steady as it gently rolled to a halt a hundred metres down the road. Fred felt warm gobbets of blood falling on his legs and knees. All of his past successes went through his mind, yet he had no thoughts.

A vision of this person's family danced through his head.

His heart pounded and his guts ached and tears stung his eyes.

Irrationally, he found his hands scrabbling to pull out a handful of tissues from the space between the seats where the little packet was kept. Failing, he gave it up, hands clenching and unclenching convulsively. All he could do was to hold his head in his hands, covering his eyes from the awful reality. The enormity of what he had just done sank in.

The man's bulging, dead eyes stared at him accusingly.

When revelation comes, it hits with a bang.

"Oh, God, no!" he moaned.

Fred Barnes was having a busy, happy, and successful life and he had just taken another's. Barnes had never in his entire life run into anything that he couldn't handle, couldn't explain, or couldn't make good or go away.

Until today.

He sat there shaking uncontrollably. Nauseous; and crying, Fred put the shift lever in 'park' more by instinct than anything else. Unable, or unwilling to reach for the phone, he would in fact be unable to talk for some minutes.

There was really nothing more to be said.

Chapter Fifty-Three

Frank putt-putted down the road at twenty-two kilometres per hour...

It is unclear to this writer how Frank Brubaker survived. It is unknown if there were any amphibians in the Knight St. neighbourhood; other than the one in Nibbles' yard. If there were; they didn't see the old fellow, and Big Frank sure didn't see them.

Frank Brubaker putt-putted down the road at about twenty-two kilometres per hour. And with the vicissitudes of fortune being what they are, for some reason only God could know; fate ensured that he made it unscathed to the Quayside Mall where he walked six days a week.

The place was perhaps a tad more deserted than usual this morning, a few bleary-eyed coffee-drinkers in the food court and several other ritual strollers attested to the normality of the day.

Where Bru went tearing off to twenty minutes earlier, he had no idea. But over the last few years; with his son living with him, he sort of got used to his moods, and the boy's occasional, odd disappearance.

To Big Frank, Chuck would always be, 'his boy.' He was always home for dinner.

Frank Brubaker wandered around the semi-deserted mall. Most of the retailers didn't open until nine o'clock; and at this point there were still thirty minutes to go. With his cane and his dark sunglasses, his wool work socks in the brown leather sandals, he looked just what he was. He was an old man with a little weight to lose. Following the doctor's orders, he was working on strengthening up a bad heart.

The furry, tan-coloured fedora, with the green feather in the band, was just icing on the cake to a casual spectator. And of course that home-made navy-blue vest with the fake pearl shirt buttons.

After putting in his laps, which took about an hour, he went to the seniors drop-in centre, endured his cheap cup of coffee for fifty cents and then went home.

After taking off his coat, he put his hat on the kitchen table. He turned on the TV. He sat down with a lurch and a sigh. Big Frank was asleep in four minutes.

Chapter Fifty-Four

The battle lasted for three days...

The battle lasted for three days, but the outcome was never in any real doubt. The giant mutant salamanders, driven by instinct and lowering water levels, had no place left to go.

It was a bloodbath. The others, good to eat as they were, were everywhere. They had sticks that made loud noises, dispensing pain and death from a distance. The elders, the big ones; soon knew that they could not win. The tragedy, the heartbreak of seeing the little ones die, calling for their mothers, was more than they could stand. It was more than a battle of survival. It was more than self-defense. It was more than a newly-learned hatred, or a war of extermination. In the end, knowing they could not win; it was a kind of vengeance.

Those who know that they will soon die, must try to take as many of their enemies as they possibly can. Acting together and thinking as one, each individual knew the true meaning of loneliness and despair at this moment. This was a moment each would face alone, in his or her own way. They huddled together and comforted their children in this time of troubles, the genocide they saw all around them. The massacre of innocents continued, even as they gathered themselves for one last push.

No one among them could have spoken what they all felt, for proper words did not exist for that.

It was the hollowest feeling inside.

A kind of disbelief. A kind of bereavement.

A sense of emptiness.

There was a coldness, an unspeakable bleakness of the soul.

Their hearts beat as one, as they slowly backed into the only space left open to them.

The path they followed was wet and slick with their own blood, and the blood of the enemy.

Finally herded into a place they could not retreat from, only a short distance from the protecting water, they made one final attack, a suicidal attack which they knew had no hope of success.

The only hope for the future was if some of them survived.

Some of their children, some of the young pregnant females must survive.

Keeping the little ones in the centre, hiding and sheltering them from the scourging fire and thunder, the pain that killed from the inside, they huddled briefly together one last time.

Communicating their thoughts to each other, drawing pictures and symbols in their minds to share, they made their plan and carried it out. Finally the small phalanx of attacking amphibians made it to the river's edge.

They got no further.

Before the last one died, she had the satisfaction of seeing her son make it into the water, and there were several others. Seeing there was no further point to the struggle, exhausted physically, knowing it was her time to die, she turned to face the pursuers.

She waited patiently, knowing that she was going to a better place.

She had done no wrong. She had carried out her biological function to perfection. She prayed to the sun and the moon and the stars in the heavens to take her away. Her sides heaved with the simple exertion of breathing.

She was a spent thing, passively expecting her fate.

She prayed for her child to grow up big and strong and that he might live in a better world. She prayed for it to be over, and she wept in her own fashion. One of the others approached her.

It would not be long now.

She had one more thing to say.

"Brubaker..."

"I'm sorry," he said, with water, the precious water, streaming out of his eyes; the very windows of the soul.

She saw the torment inside of him.

"I forgive you, Brubaker," she whispered.

She heard a loud noise and felt the things enter her body. The last thing she saw was Brubaker standing beside her, making a strange song. Somehow she knew that he prayed to the sun and the moon, perhaps even The Eternal One, just like she did.

The blackness closed in.

The horrendous pain stopped and it was all over.

Chapter Fifty-Five

Mayor Hope Pedlar...

When someone finally got around to remembering about the Mayor, her body was found on the balcony. She was missing her right arm, and something had been feeding on her plump carcass.

The face was almost unrecognizable, but it was her, all right. They say she bled to death, and that it was very quick.

Investigators found a green plastic Tupperware bowl beside her and a used piece of Blaran Wrap on the kitchen counter. Apparently the Mayor was trying to feed one of the creatures some leftovers, according to police; a home-made tuna salad consisting of elbow noodles, onions, celery, tuna and mayonnaise.

With a million dollar grant from the Scow Corporation, the Mayor Hope Pedlar Memorial Art Gallery and Public Library is under construction at the time of this writing.

No one begrudges her that.

Andy Bandy, inconsolable, read the eulogy at the funeral, a closed-coffin affair, and died six months later.

As some said, he died of a broken heart, or just plain loneliness.

***

The Guardian-Standard soldiers on. For a few days it was put together by guys like Bruce Lipshitz, brought back out of semi-retirement; and Les Purvis, who has been awful quiet lately; Ken Noble and others. Barnes is on sick leave for psychological problems. It is unclear when and if he will return to his duties.

Bill O'Keefe died of a heart attack, running up the stairs to the second-floor newsroom. Decades of easy living, two packs of regular smokes a day, and a litre-a-day whiskey habit finally caught up with him.

Mackenzie Schwartz was reassigned to the war in Afghanistan, where she reports daily though the written word, both for her News Service employers and as a free-lance journalist.

She's probably more man than some will ever be, and more woman than some will ever have.

Les figured that out after a while, and has also applied for a transfer.

This writer wishes them well.

***

The Hot Dog Bandit was no more. Bru didn't really care what happened to him; but from now on there were no sharp-fingered pinch marks in the buns. Hot dog buns, hamburger buns, any kind of buns, they were all good now.

Whether the Hot Dog bandit was killed by a giant mutant ninja salamander, as the media was now calling them; was unclear and in Bru's mind irrelevant.

For all he cared, the guy got picked up by the Detroit Tigers.

Or perhaps it was just some construction worker, headed out to Calgary or Fort McMurray. Maybe some electrician, or a pipefitter gone home to Prince Edward Island, or somewhere on the east coast. Maybe it was the Mayor! Or some guy who worked in research at Buncor. Or maybe it was some simple-minded old foreign lady, or Chief William P. O'Shaughnessey; whose body was never found. It could have been anyone, but whoever it was, they were gone—perhaps picked up in a meth lab raid somewhere, or died with a needle in their arm in some alleyway.

Maybe they got eaten. No one could say for sure.

Who cared?

Certainly not Bru.

He still had plenty of problems of his own to deal with.

It really didn't matter to Brubaker; although he occasionally wondered if somewhere in Canada, somewhere in the world for that matter, someone was even at that exact moment going through the rack. So fresh-smelling, all warm bread and plastic, pinching every damned one of the friggin' things.

Some poor stock boy getting blamed for it. You would think the Hot Dog Bandit would notice after a while that there is a little plastic tag, and that it has a date on it.

For them it's not about freshness. It's just plain ignorance. A kind of mega-abuse on a nanoscopic scale. Totally random and arbitrary.

The fourth kind of stalker.

Certainly some people are stubborn; but there's more to it than that.

Something sick, something evil, something menacing, something deep; and latent in their subconscious mind, deep in their very souls, something rubbing them the wrong way.

They know who they are. And life isn't fair sometimes.

They say there is a kind of justice in the world, but sometimes you wonder.

As Chuck Brubaker once said in a letter to the editor, "You don't need any training to be a philosopher."

(But it might help.—ed.)

Ultimately Brubaker learned a lot about himself.

When things are going good, that is not the measure of a man. It's when the chips are down, and the whole world seems to be against you; it's what you do then.

That is the measure of a man.

***

Walter LaSally drove around and around and around, pushing snow across the parking lot at the Charity Casino, grateful to have won the bid for another season. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth he went.

With a pudgy little wife, three ill-behaved kids, a house, a business, people depending on him for their wages, he managed the stress by never being seen without a beer in his hand. Walter was aware that he was a little man, with a high-pitched obnoxious voice, no obvious skills, and no real education. He was trapped and he knew it. He would be cutting grass, plowing snow and drinking beer by the pool for the rest of his life.

He would be rooting for the Leafs for all of eternity, and hanging onto his own set of core values.

(And probably not getting much joy out of either one. — ed.)

He knew who he was.

In this writer's opinion, a more perfect fate could not have befallen him.

Life has a way of taking care of all the little injustices, doesn't it?

Epilogue: 3,150 A.D.

The jeep slewed its way down the red mud jungle track. Nadir looked out of the window and through the rain. To the left was the mountainside. It loomed over them, with a heavy mist obscuring tongues of glacier on its heights. The jeep rounded an abrupt bend in the road. His monotonously-silent driver gave a grunt. Apparently this was his version of the triumphant announcement of their arrival.

After a hundred interminable kilometres of raw frontier, forest, and broken terrain, they were at the digs. Nadir could see men in rain gear and boots slipping and sliding about in the awful muck. Earth-movers, a long line of them, crossed the road while they waited. After a pause, the jeep was allowed in through a gap. He recognized a long-haired man hurrying to meet them. In spite of remote video conferences giving them that face-to-face contact so important in human relations, Nadir couldn't stick a name to that face. He took Nadir to an opening in the cliff, covered by heavy tarpaulins.

The tall, bespectacled, blue-eyed Dr. Jeffrey Helmuth appeared from the dank and musty gloom of the interior. Inside the cavernous blackness, Nadir saw machinery and equipment, stuff reminiscent of boxcars upended, or heavy fabricating tools. It appeared to be an alien factory; at least that was the assessment so far. It was a complex maze of 'something,' built by a civilization as yet unknown.

"Gentlemen," noted his guide.

Nadir felt a jab of naked shit, right in the guts.

The bald, sweating man on his left showed him further in, blue eyes gleaming behind the lenses. Two other men, one the guide, accompanied them.

"No one besides myself and a few others has seen this," Dr. Helmuth said. "We've been holding off until your arrival."

All around, the hulking constructions were covered in a thick, even coating of dust. Undisturbed for God knows how long. But then as the doctor pointed down at the floor, Nadir saw some strange and disturbing tracks.

It was true then.

Nadir's heart begin to beat heavily, and he noted a sense of adrenalin-ridden shock.

He knelt down to examine the spoor. They were curiously elongated. The toe-pads were impossibly far from the balls of the foot. There were strange little scratch-marks, even farther out past the toes.

"It's difficult to estimate the age," he began. "Narrow, like a girl-child's feet. It's very odd. It's as if they don't clip their toenails...ever."

He stood up to note the marks and prints on the ladder that went up the side of the device.

"Almost looks like they were playing," he noted.

There was barely an echo. The words were eaten up and absorbed by the walls and floor. Outside, the sounds of men and machinery working could be faintly perceived; maybe forty metres distant. It was another world out there, a world of light, and wind, rain and movement, and moving, active things.

Outside was activity.

In here, time stood still.

"It's very difficult to estimate the age, without further study of the rate of deposition, and the source of the, er; crud," he concluded with a rueful grin at the other men.

"It could be days, or it could be years," he added superfluously.

"And that's not all," said the Doctor in an odd tone. "Sorry to hold back on you, but..."

"Spit it out," suggested Nadir.

His associates weren't there, but had heard the tale.

"Doctor Helmuth heard a noise; or rather noises," one of the men said in a serious tone.

"Or maybe voices," the other guy put in.

Nadir searched their faces for signs of ridicule, but found none.

"Show me the other tracks. The ones you told me about," he said.

"Right this way," beckoned Dr. Helmuth, with a trace of apparent nervousness.

They picked up the bags and the walky-talkies. Then he led them deeper, with the help of their powerful hand-held lights, into the subterranean world.

The good doctor paused.

"This is where my own tracks end," he said, and then pointed his torch, stabbing out into the dark. "I heard something; and that was it for me."

There was a clear space of dry and undisturbed dust, black and hoary-looking in the ellipse of illumination thrown by the torch. Then Nadir saw it, a wavering, mottled pattern of shadows, and lumpy-looking marks in the dust.

"There! They go off to right and left." Helmuth whispered hoarsely. "We made a point of it; not to make too many tracks of our own. The two sets of tracks must meet up somewhere."

"Let's go on," said Nadir. "Can I call you Jeff?"

"Yes," agreed Doctor Helmuth, yet making no effort to introduce the others.

Nadir put it down to sheer nervousness on the doctor's part. He let it lie for the moment. There was another short pause, as they checked in by radio with a safety team outside in the unsecured area. With Nadir leading the way, they proceeded into the blackness. He stood momentarily, looking at the thin, yet distinct stretch of tracks running across a wide dust-blackened hall.

"Most of them seem to be pointed this way," he observed.

No one spoke. He could hear every one of them breathing in the stillness. Good reason to get them moving again. He filled the silence with a few suggestions, such as tying up a bootlace, and he asked the tallest one to tie down the flaps on his pack. It was more to keep their minds occupied than from any real necessity. The team moved deliberately, and with some caution. He kept hoping they would address each other by name.

As they followed along, the tracks moved closer to a wall, and then the room opened up. It was so huge that all of their lights combined could not pierce the inky distance ahead. There was nothing but blackness. Yet the overhead loomed low, with piping, ductwork, cables, stapled or clipped or bolted to the underside. A shaft, lined with nameless infrastructure, went straight up above them. Thirty metres further on, it swelled to vastness again.

"They know what a straight line is," muttered Jeffrey Helmuth. "It's all very geometrical."

"Huh," the short, mustachioed man muttered. "The roof is slanted. The peak is up about eleven hundred metres!"

"Map it," instructed Nadir as the fellow hastened to comply, tapping buttons and studying the layout so far.

"What the hell were they building in here?" the doctor queried. "And now it's so completely empty."

Their hearts had slowed down somewhat. The trail led far off into the center of the dark. It was dreadfully empty feeling, like everything in it had simply decomposed into nothingness. Everything was covered in a fine charcoal-grey powder; anywhere from four or five millimetres deep up to a metre in places; in something that resembled drifts of sand or snow.

Before setting off again, they examined cubicles along the wall: a door, a window, low-tiled ceilings.

"Foreman's office?" someone, the tall guy, asked.

"Interview rooms?" Mr. Moustache suggested; this was the long-haired guy in blue coveralls.

With more boldness than might have been imagined, they kept on across the space.

It was very disorienting not to clearly see the floor. There were no walls to be seen, and the ceiling retreated to the great heights again. There was absolutely no noise except the puff-puff-puff of their feet and their own breath.

The light was sucked up by the fibrous black dust that coated everything.

"This is un-fucking-believable," the long-haired construction guy said.

His name was on the tip of Nadir's tongue.

"The trail branches left and right again," said Nadir. "Look where it branches off."

They consulted amongst themselves as to what to do.

"The left one there seems a little more defined," said the hulking big fellow at his elbow.

"Stan!" grinned Nadir in recollection.

He'd studied the files. The start had been little hurried this morning. Yet with all the preparations taken well in hand, there was no reason to delay.

"All right, we'll take the left one," and he placed a beacon by pressing the little tit and then rolling it underhand off into the emptiness.

"Hopefully, that will remain there," he said, "But we have our mappers too."

After a further half hour's walk, they finally came to the other side.

Here they stopped and set out another beacon.

"Nothing beats a ball of string or a trail of bread crumbs," joked the doctor.

'We all seem to be feeling a little more at ease now,' Nadir thought.

He considered his words.

"If you had to blaze a trail across something like that, you could almost go mad," he told the others. "Imagine primitive peoples, equipped only with smoldering sticks, or maybe slightly more sophisticated fat-lamps."

"If you brought fuel and wicks with you, you could go on forever," pointed out the one guy whose name Nadir couldn't recall.

"They could bring food and water, if they had containers," he added.

That's good. Nadir was thinking.

Put ourselves in the place of...them.

He shuddered involuntarily.

Then, almost in answer to his primitive, atavistic reaction, they heard it.

Was it a flute? A whistle? Voices? And then a drum? Distorted by distance, muffled by dust, changed and made more; well, spooky by multitudinous corners?

The tall guy, Stan, crossed himself, muttering, 'Nom de Dieu,' or something Nadir couldn't quite catch.

But that, oddly enough, helped to allay his fears. Logic and reason, he told himself, logic and reason. Let that be your guide.

Still they hesitated. Stan was the tall guy. The long-haired guy was...but it still wouldn't come. No time to fire up the computer and no good excuse, either.

Nadir forced himself to boldly lead off. To go back now would have been unthinkable.

His neck bristled and he could feel the goose bumps and the hairs rise on his arms.

Another faint sound came from afar.

"That could be water, or something," whispered the long-haired fellow. "Couldn't it?"

No one else offered an opinion.

Suddenly they were on a main thoroughfare. They shone their lights at literally hundreds of alien foot marks. The men nervously pointed the lights around, behind, ahead along the trail. These showed signs of various ages, suggested by the overlay of subsequent passers-by.

"Why don't we stop, out to the side somewhere," Nadir suggested.

One place looked as good as another. They put out a number of sensors. They used sonar-tripped cameras, with passive infrared capability. A seismograph, a sound recorder, and several other image-gathering systems.

They rolled out their sleeping bags and had a cold meal.

They found the floor by brushing aside the fine, powdery dust, which took a long time to settle.

It hung there all around them. They could taste it. It tasted like dirt.

Nadir carefully gave instructions in a low voice.

"Let's have a pee, and then; pretend to sleep. Keep a rigorous silence," he told them.

They put out all the lights. The breathing of the other men slowly diminished as they began to relax. It might be a long wait. When a person moved in their sleeping bag, causing a sudden and much-anticipated, 'sssss-ip' sound, it did cause a body to twitch reflexively.

Sweat trickled down his temples. He peered into the dark from his almost-fetal position, knowing full well, he couldn't hope to see anything. Whenever one of his companions moved, he had a small jolt of adrenalin. How long to keep on? Wait three or four hours and then pretend to awaken?

Should have made that more clear with the men. Nadir hadn't reckoned on the tension.

It came then.

Carefully Nadir reached out and touched Jeff Helmuth's rigid figure. Helmuth's body twitched.

A hand grasped his. Helmuth heard it too!

Nadir could discern the progress of the touch to the other two men.

Off in the dark, yet out of the range of the camera's motion detector zone; they could hear someone; or some things moving across the dark chamber. There were no torches or lights. Could it be a large animal, or a herd of some type of cave-dwelling creature?

Not for the first time, his skin crawled, and hairs stood up. He kept strangely calm, but wondered if any of the others was fighting the urge to put on a light.

Vague noises. Too bad, but they couldn't use night vision, not in pitch blackness, and not with flash units set to go off at any time. Not to see what was coming was frankly terrifying. He had never felt fear of this intensity for any extended period before. He realized with stark recognition, that he had lived a pretty sheltered life. Up until now.

There were noises...must have come upon our tracks, he realized.

The sounds were getting louder...no, closer!

That's when they heard the cameras go off, three of them in quick succession.

They had a funny little beep to indicate a successful picture. The lighting units were deliberately set very low to avoid causing injury to cave-dwelling species. The men had only the briefest impression, of a few shadowy, yet vertically-elongated figures.

There were several seconds of padding, scuffling noises.

Then all was silence again.

Everyone let out their breath at once. Nadir fought back an insane urge to giggle...

Unzipping their sleeping bags, they all began whispering excitedly, but just as quickly got it under control.

"Let's recover the cameras immediately," said Nadir in a normal tone.

They all had their little lights going again. Thank God for that.

"They must be watching from afar," the doctor said, yet there was no animal-eye reflection to be seen in a three-hundred-sixty degree sweep with one of the big lights.

"Let's act like we own the place," Nadir decided.

"Camera one," said Stan, with the others crowding at his shoulder to watch.

He pushed the play button.

"Oh, my God," the other guy murmured.

The rest remained silent, intent on the screen, avidly sucking it in.

They were viewing the first scientifically-documented alien contact in the history of the human race.

"Holy, bejeebers," said Stan.

His partner just grunted.

"You got that right," he muttered. "Next time you want to use yourself as bait, leave me home!"

They all chuckled.

"That's an unusual effect," noted the doctor. "Still; we have two arms and two legs, a head. They're kind of thin-looking."

"We have still pictures as well," added the other guy. "Let's have a look."

The initial impression was the same; tall, thin, 'people,' wearing long raggedy cloaks, and all of them were barefoot. Skinny shanks stuck out of the robes here and there.

"Did we have the gain turned up too much?" Nadir asked.

"I'm sorry," said Stan. "I think the background temperature must be pretty low, because the dust acts as an insulator and it also gets all over everything, including them... and the cameras."

"Very skeletal looking," Nadir was fascinated by the look of them.

"What the heck would they find to eat in here?" rejoined Helmuth.

"We'll leave some beads, and tools, a few bags of candy. No weapons, not even a knife," Nadir decided.

"There must be a waterhole," he reasoned out loud for the benefit of the others.

The doctor moved off, in the lead suddenly, as he studied the marks and came back.

"They went back to the main trail, instead of running off into the darkness," he reported.

"Is it possible they move about in here, completely in the dark?" the doctor wondered aloud.

"Let's think about it. If they're barefoot, and if they're on the trail, they can probably feel other footprints below them. If they set foot too far off the trail, their feet would probably be sensitive enough to tell the difference," suggested Nadir.

"Holy, Jesus," muttered Stan.

They cleared up the site, and put all the stuff back in the bags.

It was a subdued group who stood looking at Nadir.

"When I got your original message, I sort of envisaged, I don't know, some kind of primitive copper mine or something," he acknowledged. "A few holes in the ground, or worse, a line of three or four stones in the dirt, more or less lined up in a row. I guess I was skeptical right up until I saw all those machines."

"When can we expect someone from the Ministry?" asked Stan.

"Anytime in the next three years," responded Nadir. "You know what they're like."

"What are we supposed to do?" asked the other.

"I'm sorry, I forgot your name," Nadir told the man. "I can see everything in your file, but I just lost your name. I'm usually pretty good with names."

"Mark," came the response, white teeth gleaming behind the moustache.

"Damn! I'm sorry," noted Nadir. "Look, guys, what would you be doing if we weren't down here?"

"Building a road?" asked Stan.

"Periodic checks on the bordello girls," Doctor Helmuth admitted.

"Paperwork," grimaced Mark.

"Let's go find that waterhole. What do you say?"

Without a whole lot of further discussion, they moved off one by one, along the main trail. The underground complex seemed to go on forever. They dropped a beacon as often as seemed necessary. These were low-powered radio beacons, and they only had so many to put down.

On and on they went, sometimes up multiple sets of stairs, or down long corridors with numberless cubicles; behind doors on each side. Occasionally; side corridors beckoned, but they followed the main concentration of foot prints.

They stopped to change batteries. They put the used ones back in the bags. There was still a little power in them and you never know.

"How far?" asked Nadir.

"We've come about six kilometres," reported Mark. "Amazing."

"Tell me about the road," suggested Nadir as they got going again.

"Originally, we were going to build a floating road across eighty kilometres of the sloppiest, the worst, the shittiest kind of muskeg terrain imaginable," said Stan. "The trouble is, you send ten trucks north, the road stretches. It buckles under them, and pressure waves go along, before and behind."

"Oh, really," Nadir said. "What does that do? Stretch the road?"

He felt another insane urge to giggle, and Stan's grin showed white and clear in the light of his torch.

"That's a good point, actually, but no. The real problem is that the up-and-down motion liquefies the muck underneath. Eventually, the inevitable truck break-down happens, and then, the road has time to settle."

"Ah! I get it," said Nadir.

"That's why we're following the lower slopes now," said Stan. "It has its problems, but it's firm ground, in fact solid igneous intrusions of billion-year old magma."

"And that takes a lot of blasting," Nadir suddenly comprehended.

"When the road is done, we can open up the mine," said Mark. "We can't lift our stuff in, it's just too expensive."

On a planet like this, either it came and went from the spaceport, went by water or was sent by road. The only modern communication was in fact electronic. You can't send a bulldozer by wireless. Too heavy to go by helicopter, which were used in the exploration.

"That kind of heavy-lift capacity is years away," the fellow concluded.

Nadir checked his watch. Soon it would be time for another rest.

They kept on for about another hour, then they came upon it. There were sounds of water dripping, and even the faintest suggestion of a pale grey light up ahead.

"Wow. That's like a huge shaft going up inside the mountain," said the doctor.

Tendrils of a woody, vine-like plant with fern-like appendages hung down in huge swooping fronds. Here the floor was almost clean, wiped so by countless feet over the years. A few mucky spots could be seen here and there.

At the edge of a clear pool of water a full seventy metres long; there was a beach, composed of a kind of black sand, along with lots of indistinct footprints.

"Look here," called Mark.

It was a heavily-dented metal bucket, lying on its side, and with a thin trickle of water still moving down a smooth rock ledge towards the pond.

They all looked at him. Nadir shone his light into the pool, seeing the beam go way, way down into the depths.

"There's a ramp going down over here," called Mark. "I'll bet there are lower levels, all flooded."

"Let's set up the cameras, one over there, one over there, and one at our spot," and he reluctantly led them back away from the mysterious pool of crystalline water.

"Cold, but good," said Stan after stopping and filling up his bottle.

They retreated a hundred metres back up the same long corridor they followed in.

They had a wall at their back, and some mouldy pieces of what looked like furniture to settle on.

"It's like a bed of moss," Jeff Helmuth murmured, as he lay back on it. "Very comfortable."

Once again they shut off all the lights and waited.

It seemed like forever. The monotonous silence was their only friend. Nadir heard another man murmuring quietly in his sleep. Then he too, slept.

Upon awakening, he knew instantly that something was wrong, horribly wrong.

Reaching for the light, it wasn't there. In rising panic, he groped and groped, but it just wasn't there! He slapped at the figure nearest him, the doctor. An animal-like sound escaped as desperate fear stabbed at him.

"Wake up, damn you!" he grunted out with some force, face all stiff with anger and something else.

Just fear.

It won't kill you, he told himself. It's just fear.

The others woke, and they were all talking. It was a moment near madness. Nadir remembered and then found his pocket flash. He turned it on, and saw the cameras hadn't been fired. Then; on impulse more than anything else, he pointed the light up. A narrow catwalk went directly over them. Five metres up. How stupid could they have been?

As the other men silenced, he put it down again.

"Anyone else have another light?" he asked.

It turns out they all did, and now they were feeling a little better about things.

They all had a grip on themselves, he noted with relief.

"Did you see 'em?" asked Stan in a hoarse whisper.

"Nah," said Nadir, sounding regretful. "Glad I didn't, actually. You guys were all sawing logs, though."

He felt a sudden burst of pride. They should be able to walk out of here, if they conserved the batteries.

"I guess they didn't want to cause us harm, or they could easily have done it," he pointed out.

"They must perceive us as some kind of a threat," muttered the doctor thoughtfully.

"It will be tough going, four guys following one small light," grunted Mark.

As they sat whispering, intent on using their ears for all their might, Nadir noted again that it wasn't completely dark. In the hours spent wandering the halls, the eyes had adjusted somewhat, and the dimmest glow emanated from the direction of the water hole.

Of course, going back the way they came in would require good lights.

That's when he saw them. He straightened up with a start. The others saw them now; too. They all went rigid, not moving a muscle.

He tried to remember to breathe.

Just try to breathe normally.

A group of beings...people...were shuffling towards them, forming a big semi-circle around them. They within about ten metres distance.

Nadir was conscious of his pistol, slung on his belt. Stan made a protesting noise, and upon rising, Nadir patted his shoulder.

Nadir stood clear of the heap. He remained silent.

"The translator?" he asked Mark.

"I have eighty nationalities under my management," he spoke in a low, calm tone.

"The Basques and the Finns caused some problems."

None of the others made a sound.

Neither did any of the group who stood regarding them in something akin to awe.

It was hard to ascribe emotions to facial expressions in a totally alien race.

Nadir studied the robes just as they seemed to study him. Tattered and covered with grime. A baby peered out from behind its, or her; mother's legs.

Hopefully, bringing the kids along was a peaceful sign?

A pair of small boys pushed at each other, eyes wide and looking at him.

"Doc! Doc! Are you seeing all this?" Nadir whispered.

The doctor had nothing to say.

A tall, wiry-looking figure stepped out front and centre, as the group parted before him. The being had burning, glowing eyes. No, it was a reflection from a small lamp he held. It appeared to be filled with living light. Some kind of insects? This being approached, but Nadir stood his ground. He even kind of relaxed. These people just looked...poverty stricken.

Faint noises issued from its mouth, obscured by an overgrown mustache and beard.

"Oh, great and mighty Star Gods, we give thanks for the blessings."

Flattery will get you everywhere, Nadir thought inconsequentially.

"You have spoken well," he said, then caught his breath.

A moment passed. He thought he was going to be sick to his stomach. Nadir didn't want to be rude, but he gawked for a moment. A movement had opened up the shawl-like garment worn by the old man.

This person had no skin pigmentation, none whatsoever. Nadir could see internal organs, or at least things which corresponded to his imagined picture of them.

He thought he could see heart, lungs, stomach, and veins, all glowing from below the skin's surface.

In the background there was a sudden intake of breath as the others caught on as well, one by one.

"Drink from our fountain, eat of our table," the being told him in a singsong, nasal chant, accompanied by somebody on a flute.

"Thank you. We come in peace," Nadir announced.

Still conscious of the gun in his waist holster, and feeling somehow sullied by the possession of it, he saw the being study his every inch.

The eyes possessed intelligence and something else. Was it fear?

"Please come with us to our home," it beckoned them.

"I'll have to write a thank-you note to the makers of that fucking translation device," noted Mark; as he stuck right there at Nadir's elbow.

***

They sat around in a big circle near one end of the pool.

Nadir and the others tried to get to know a little about the people. Apparently they farmed some kind of crop up on the terraces of the great shaft above them. The people with the highest fields could grow the best crops. That made sense, but only the strongest and fittest could work them.

Water fell from the sky. A few stalagmites and stalactites could be seen. The light was growing stronger, roughly corresponding to about midday on the surface.

The water would eventually build up calcareous deposits. Everything else looked to be made by someone's hand. Did the original builders take advantage of existing tunnels in the extinct volcano? It would seem that they must have. Yet he knew nothing. Nothing with a capital 'N.'

Nadir and the others agreed that the water issued from one of the glaciers that dotted the Seven Sisters volcanic chain. Perhaps the ground was riddled with lava tubes turned into rivers.

However, this did not satisfactorily account for the light. Was it possible that even now; alien emergency lighting a thousand years old was coming down from above? But why not in the other passages? The light was not necessarily, 'natural,' though. And it didn't seem to be luminescing from the rocks or the very walls or anything like that. It clearly fell from above, just like the fine, ever-present mist in the main chamber.

The sky was a splotchy glare of indeterminate distance. By studying the sides of what was a huge stony bowl, they decided that it had to be a couple of thousand metres up there.

"I'm not sure if that's an artificial sky, or what," he admitted to Doctor Helmuth and the others. "It's damned convincing, if it is."

"We're in some kind of alien mall," joked Stan, who had been pretty quiet for some time.

They watched the kids playing by the water's edge. The chief sat with them, and several others. The kids simply accepted them at face value and went back to play.

It took some getting used to, but people are people, Nadir reasoned.

"Do you think sunlight is directed into the shaft by huge mirrors or something?"

asked Mark.

The shaft was so high there was only that faint glow.

The people returned the expedition's equipment, tactfully, and had asked not to be 'over-warmed,' by the light of the 'baby-stars,' that the 'sky-gods,' carried with them.

Nadir apologized profusely, and the chief seemed to bear no ill will towards the team. He seemed to accept the apology at face value. He didn't seem to know anything at all about the world outside the volcano, nor did he know who made the tunnels.

They were expected!

Literally for months and years now. The thuds and clunks of the road-building told of their coming. Nadir tried to see it. To visualize this bit of data, from the point of view of the aliens, living underground.

'Yes; they would have heard us coming,' he realized.

He made the men open up their packs again and share a meal, making sure all the villagers got a taste of the 'Sky-Gods' food.

It was the least they could do.

He felt pretty guilty about flash-burns to several younger members of the tribe.

"We are not gods, we are people, just like you."

How could you explain it?

To tell these folks, living underground all their lives, about the sky?

The chief kept calling them, 'people of the sky,' and such. How could one explain about road building, and blasting, and blowing off the corner of a mountain? And finding a hole? Revealing a cave? With strange, rectangular objects inside it, obviously not natural formations?

How could you explain an e-mail to head office, and how everyone else wanted the weekend off...?

How he was the new guy?

Upon arrival, he was thrilled to be on a planet with a total population of eighteen thousand. Yet this hadn't corresponded to his fantasy, painstakingly built up in a small woodlot outside of his home town, with rabbits, foxes; and the occasional turkey vulture.

Lots of little creatures, that scampered about like Bambi.

None of them was psychologically equipped for this, and especially not the villagers.

"When worlds collide," he quipped to the doctor, and then suddenly regretted it; for the translator worked both ways.

The aliens could hear everything he said, he realized with a sudden guilty feeling.

"I know what you mean. I'm finding this hard going myself," admitted Dr. Helmuth.

So far no one had the fortitude to try any of the fungoid-looking food offered by the people.

The 'old man' spoke as Nadir and the others listened. He had a sound recorder set up and hoped to catch every word. It suddenly occurred to Nadir that this discovery could totally 'make' him with the company.

"The people have lived here for many thousand years," the old man intoned, searching his memory for the long-held word pictures which seemed to be a complex language.

"Long ago, the Gods burned the land with lightning and thunder," he sang. "Only those who hid in the Womb of the World survived."

The old man hummed a few notes, and then continued.

"When the air became fire to breathe, and the water became like poison to drink," and more nasal sing-song notes hummed down in the deepness of his stringy throat. "A man and a woman came to this place and became our ancestors."

The song went on for quite a bit, a haunting melody, unstructured but still music.

"But surely now, it is safe to return," suggested the Doctor.

"We have adapted," said the chief simply.

"Well put," noted Mark dryly. "How do they know about the sky? Stars? Thunder and lightning?"

This was truly fascinating stuff, and how lucky! Like a fantasy come true. Nadir just shrugged at Mark, Stan and the doctor. They watched as the women roasted a huge, lizard-like creature, all white and morphous-looking, with its tiny, pale, yet bulging eyes closed over in death.

It began to sizzle, with grease spattering and flaring on contact with the coals.

***

Later, with the chief's daughter as his guide, he explored some of the galleries. Going up stairway after stairway, traversing the wide alcoves and balconies, the light grew progressively stronger.

Here were epiphytic plants, growing in vast profusion, cheek by jowl and one on top of the other. Nadir remarked upon a small flying critter much like a hummingbird, flitting from bulb to bulb. Somewhere he discovered the analogy ran thin. This was, after all; a very unusual alien ecology. Not exactly his forte.

Nadir was a gussied-up security guard, and, 'trouble-shooter,' nothing more. A dick, a gumshoe, a flatfoot, 'a good old rent-a-cop.' A job is a job and you take what you can get, yet there was no luckier man in the galaxy!

"Holy cow," he joshed, and then couldn't explain it for the life of him. At first the scents confused him, but apart from her unique scent, there were a thousand others.

He saw weird and wonderful blossoms, some tiny as a pinhead and others shrub-size. More flying critters. They seemed to be winged reptilians; and not all of them vegetarian. There were flowers in profusion, some with fragrance sweet, piercing and piquant; some sour, or even putrescent.

There must be more carnivores, he reluctantly decided. How big could they get? But the girl didn't seem overly concerned by the flyers.

A blue blossom beside his head smelled sour. It was not unpleasant. It was just different. Water continually fell from the overhead shaft, metres away from the edge of the place where they stood. This was an odd amphitheatre-like nook in the wall of the crater or tube, or whatever formed this place.

The water hung before them like a veil.

"One of my grandfather's fields," she explained.

Ah! It must be...lying fallow? And with the waterfall adjacent, a prime location, he realized.

They stopped for a while, taking a seat on the terrace. They talked in quiet voices, for he took the translator device along while the other men did other things, like sleep and cook. When the pair of them left, the doctor was examining some of the children. He was taking extensive notes; and being quite thorough. Nadir humourously noted the patience of the children; a good trait.

All just a game to them, probably. He became aware of her warmth as she huddled innocently at his side.

He asked her age, her name, her family, her friends. How was she taught? Did she know what a school is? Even the most mundane questions took on huge significance when talking to an alien. Oddly; proper names meant nothing to the translator.

Interesting.

These people offered no threat to the Company's project. That meant he could relax some. But it was clearly essential to get on good terms with them, like good neighbours should.

The Ministry would show up sooner or later. Hand them a big public relations scoop on a silver platter, and the Company would have the Ministry eating out of its hand. At least for a while.

She seemed to be about twenty, yet she herself had no idea. No seasons, no stars visible to create a chronology. It got dimmer, it got brighter, but with the sun and the moon lighting the outside world, it was never, 'daylight.'

Down here, time stood still. The darkness lasted an eternity.

The falling water glittered as only falling water can. He sighed in appreciation of the beauty he saw before him. With just a little more light on the subject, the lava-tube would have been a magnificent scene. The widest part had to be five hundred metres, perhaps longer in one axis.

Her skin shone with a luster peculiar to the people.

He studied her some more, up close and personal, as she regarded him with the most elfin, ingenuous look on her face. Not all of them glowed, but she did. Once a person got used to it, it seemed very natural and beautiful. Nadir gazed at the beating of her heart, the glowing mammary glands, the hard muscles of her tummy thankfully obscuring her breakfast.

For some reason he felt very protective of her all of a sudden.

How it all happened, he could not afterwards say. It just happened. For no reason at all, he leaned over, almost not of his own volition. He kissed her, and her arms came up around his neck as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

They made love in a soft, mossy glade which was but feet from the edge of the abyss. Water fell from above, a fine mist, which oddly did not cool them. It was a fine, warm mist as they writhed and moaned in sweet madness. He knew it was wrong, but he was unable to stop.

Her eyes, her hair; all of her was his and he loved her. He wondered how he could ever leave after smelling the hair, the hair of a woman of the people up close. It was enchanting; to feel that soft, smooth, satiny skin against your loins.

Something happened. He saw himself through her eyes for one brief moment of time.

It was a shared moment, a kind of telepathy that he forgot about as soon as he recognized it.

Nadir had barely heard of pheromones on a science program years before, yet he was conscious of the effect her aroma had on him.

In the back of his mind, he recognized what must be happening.

He was unable to resist.

Nadir was uncaring for the moment. What mattered was that two became one...

They lay together in a silence that only lovers can know.

Time briefly stood still for them.

***

When they finally returned to the village; Nadir's dazed reverie was brutally shattered. The hypnotic effect was broken by shock at the news. There were three new men, waiting with Dr. Helmuth and the others.

"What happened?" he asked.

The senior new guy made a report.

"After about twenty hours, we decided to come in after you. We got in maybe a kilometre. Maybe a klick and a quarter. We heard a rumble, and we felt the ground shake. A big quake. We were unable to contact safety two at the entry point," he said.

"We made our way back. After about four hundred and fifty metres, the way was blocked by a fall. Rather than try to explore other routes; there's only one outlet we know about after all, we chose to continue the search for you."

"Shit! Well, you did the right thing, I suppose," muttered Nadir.

"You know, we did hear or feel, I guess, a small tremor a few hours ago. I thought I was imagining things, but the people were adamant about something," noted Doctor Helmuth.

"It's very rare," added Mark.

"I was way up the shaft," said Nadir, unconscious of the irony. "I didn't hear a thing."

"Might not have felt it, if a person was standing on the spongy stuff," said Stan.

"Couldn't be that big a fall," speculated one of the new guys. "Thank God we work for the mining company!"

"I hate to break this to you, but it could be some time before they can get to us," said Nadir soberly.

Mark, more in tune with the logistics and available equipment, nodded agreement.

"If they started immediately, it will still take days to get tunnel-diggers onsite," he explained. "They may have to bore through a half a klick or a klick of solid fucking basalt."

Considering their position; Nadir took control, as a senior officer of the company.

In his security role, he was clearly the most logical person to be in charge. They brewed up coffee and soup with the newcomers, who brought along a welcome three-day ration of survival foods a la special services or snipers.

Real iron-ration shit, he noted, but gratefully.

Nadir asked them to conserve the lights, which they agreed to do.

The People began to draw near; having remained at a respectful distance from the new men.

"Holy cow!" gasped one of the new guys, then the others gaped as well.

"Calm down! Doctor Helmuth, would you please explain things to these fellows? I have to talk to the chief," said Nadir firmly.

A time for firm and effective leadership, he realized.

The chief confirmed his worst fears. Some travelers were missing. A search to the east, where Nadir and his group came from; revealed that some of the tunnels known to the village had collapsed. The young men of the village brought the news.

"How can my people and I get out?" asked Nadir in some dismay.

"There is a journey of many sleeps to the west. No one alive in the village now to guide you. The only man who has ever been there is one of the missing travelers."

"Will they be able to make their way back here?" asked Nadir.

"We hope that they live. We hope that they can find a way to come home," the chief told him. "But no one can tell the future."

"We might not be able to go far enough west with our lights," Nadir explained. "We can't travel in the pitch dark."

"It will take much time to gather the light-creatures, for your lamps," said the chief.

"Or you must climb."

"What?" gasped Nadir in renewed hope. "You mean there is a way out?"

The chief told him of an old legend. A legend from the beginnings of time itself, as far as The People were concerned.

"In the beginning, a man and a woman climbed down into the center of the world from their home in the sky," the old man intoned in the sing-song notes, the ritual words of the ancient song. "It is to the sky, that you must seek your fate. So it is for us, and so, perhaps, it will be for you."

Nadir went back to camp with the chief, aware that he would have to convince the others. The key to that was to convince himself. That turned out to be easier than expected. The men were beaten. Despondent and demoralized; they lacked the will to do anything about their situation. He soon had them up and moving. The chief gave them his daughter as a guide to help them find the way. She knew it as well as anyone in the village, they were assured.

They climbed, they climbed, they climbed ever higher. As the group went up stair and ramp after endless stair and ramp; the light imperceptibly brightened.

The mood changed and a note of boldness crept into the comments of one the new guys. He became surly, truculent and argumentative. Nadir might have big trouble on his hands. They had been on their way less than three hours.

Then signs of altitude sickness set in. Possibly the air got more polluted as opposed to thinner? Hard to say without proper instruments. Suddenly the surly one slipped and fell as he reached for a set of ladder-bars set into a vertical wall. One quick glimpse of his terrified eyes, the rictus of terror turning his mouth into something hideous. Then the strands of vegetation broke away.

A funny little yelp, an animal gasp, and then a shrieking, sobbing, burbling yell that ended shockingly. After a brief echo, the cavern went silent. Just as quickly as it started, the echoing scream stopped.

The girl shuddered in his arms.

Nadir heard voices from the level above.

"Jesus!" someone said.

All was shocked silence.

"All right, men; pay attention to what you're doing," barked Nadir.

Jesus isn't the right word for it, he thought.

They were stunned by the death. Although none could blame Nadir, it cast a horrible pall over the group. He felt a heavy load of guilt, even though the man was careless and stupid.

They kept going, more slowly now. The group carefully made their way up terraces, and ledges, some just barren stone, perched over a vertical fall, some overhung by huge slabs.

There was always another ladder, another stairwell, another ramp, and another vertical slot that could be managed by fit people with some small physical skills. All the while, the air got worse, and they got more tired, and the odds got longer.

Occasionally it would be a vertical climb on some ancient metal rungs. Wet; and moss covered, it was far from easy or safe going. He could see that better now. It was time for a rest and maybe some better planning. They rigged up all their climbing gear. They roped themselves together as best they could, although their capability was limited. They stood on a terraced ledge, about fifteen metres wide and a hundred metres long. Nadir went to the back wall. Putting his back against it, he slid down into a seated position.

Breathing deeply, there was moist sweat in the armpits and in the chest area.

"What's our altitude?" he asked.

"Got to be up close to three thousand metres by now," affirmed Helmuth.

"Let's keep the food, ropes, helmets, and cache the rest here," Nadir suggested.

No one else spoke. If there is an opening, can we make it? What if it's simply too high?

Columbia had a thinner atmosphere than his own world, but it had higher CO2, in addition to richer oxygen content. The CO2 helped keep the atmosphere stable.

The team had small bottles of oxygen, meant for emergency first-aid use. They sat and heated more soup, and hot coffee. It would be wise to rest a while. No one felt like sleep.

They sat wrapped up in their sleeping bags. Getting damned cold, Nadir noted. The food supply couldn't hold out for an extended time. If they couldn't get out this way, someone would have to try the unknown path to the west. That was a very bleak thought. He knew who would have to lead it. But to sit and wait was a form of suicide.

Even if the exact location of any exit was unknown, someone would have to try.

There were too many unknowns. The other option was to try to stay with the people, and eat their food, and hope for rescue. Natural revulsion aside; the likelihood of an allergic reaction or simple poisoning was too high.

Who wants to be first?

After two or three weeks, attempts to rescue them would be called off.

On that note, Nadir and the girl led the way. The way became progressively more challenging. They had to routinely cast around for the correct way to go. Up until now, it was easy or obvious. But each successive path closed off other options. The band of refugee climbers had reached the point where there was only one correct path at any given time, and the price of error was wasted time, energy and vitality.

They were losing time. The growth was becoming a jungle, with creepers, woody plants, and succulent plants that didn't support your weight. Some had thorns, prickles, or a sap that stung and itched.

"Don't wipe your eyes," he advised.

"Let the doctor look at that," he added to Mark, who now had angry red welts, big slash marks on his exposed forearms.

They rested again.

"If you get that stuff in your eyes, you'll be fucked," he barked again to the whole group.

They had plenty of water to wash it off with, at least that was good.

Suddenly the girl would go no farther.

"It burns," she told them, referring to the increasing daylight.

She was a creature of the darkness, no doubt about it.

The Doctor and the other men doggedly moved on while Nadir and the girl said a painful goodbye.

"I love you," she told him in utmost simplicity.

"I'll be back," said Nadir and tears filled his eyes.

"I will remember you always," she said.

Something stabbed into his heart. Reality? Truth? The pain of them both knowing?

Slowly she turned away and began to climb down into the misty cloud that now lay below their level.

He watched her, but only for a while.

Soon he turned his eyes to the sky again.

Suddenly two shots rang out. Several more shots. What the hell was going on up there? With a pounding in his chest and ringing in his ears, he hoisted himself off the ladder onto a tiny landing.

More ladders!

A body dropped past his position, then another, silently falling. The colourful, tumbling, rag-doll clothing told him the doctor was not among them.

But who?

He climbed again with renewed effort, yet he must go slowly. At an overhanging ledge, he caught up to Mark and Stan. They looked to be deep in oxygen starvation. Their eyes loomed in desperation as they gasped with the pain of breathing.

Their hands didn't seem to be working properly. Their oxygen bottles were empty, or almost so.

"He took our bottles!" gasped Stan. "He killed them! He killed them!"

Nadir just nodded in numbed grief and a hazy kind of understanding.

His own hands were getting stiff. Nadir had a dizzy, nauseous feeling; even a kind of drunk. He struggled to keep his composure and to remain calm. There was still some oxygen in his bottle.

These men were near finished; and there was little he could do for them.

"Your best chance is to rest. Stay roped together. That last set of ladders is a real doozie. You guys better head down very slowly. It's your only chance," he advised.

He had this sinking feeling that one man couldn't possibly lower them on a rope; not hundreds of feet.

Stan had the strength to try, but Mark...Mark slowly began to reach for a branch close to their little safety nest. The other guy was clinging to the rock face, crying.

Stan was willing to give it a go. Nadir nodded encouragement, and patted them all on the shoulder, willing them to live.

Of the doctor, there was no sign.

Nadir stayed out of the way. Then he began to climb to get above them, out of danger from his own friends. He wondered if the doctor would try to ambush him. Still, he had to go on.

Somebody had to get out. Might as well be me, he thought with a burst of fury that was surprising in its intensity, despite the surroundings and circumstances.

Yes, he might live yet. Something, some things, deep in his guts were driving him.

The end of the journey was near, and the other man must have gotten out. The sky! It was very near now, a dome, not flat, where ice had melted away due to the heat of the mountain. The stronger light showed details that he hadn't seen in what seemed like a lifetime.

He recognized the hair on the backs of his hands.

Fingernails turning blue...his hand didn't look right. Kind of swollen.

"Fuck you!" he said to his hands.

Then he had it.

There was a final kind of overhanging ledge. Where the icy lip hung over was the outlet of a small waterfall, so far the highest one of the numerous streams that issued from rocky ledges all over the interior wall of the crater or shaft.

As soon as the water came over the lip it turned into the fine vapour that fell below.

The sky was ice. It was a plug of ice, covering the hole where the dim light came from. Nadir studied the way ahead. Now, due to the intense cold, the woody vines were extinguished, the only handholds mossy wet cracks in the rock. He could see the only place.

The doctor could have climbed across and under; then up the other side.

"Jesus!" Nadir prayed silently but fervently.

The pain centred up in the whole of his reality. Everything else faded away. The pain alone was real.

Mind focused as best he could, strength and courage all but gone, gasping for breath and steeling his fingers with the power of his will, he made it across without looking down; without thinking about it too much. When he got to the other side of the falls, he had strong nausea, deep in the guts. He swallowed, over and over again, and controlled it.

Straight up now...careful, careful...still got some oxygen left.

He climbed to a point just below the slippery creek ledge. Surveying all the other three-hundred-sixty degrees of the shaft; he saw that he was alone. Either the doctor made it out or he died trying. Perhaps falling silently past, when his own attention was directed elsewhere?

But that seemed unlikely.

Helmuth would have screamed.

He would have screamed, right?

Nadir was aware that his knees were knocking and his heart was racing.

He prayed that the murdering bastard Doctor Helmuth had gotten out. He studied the stone, saw a dislodged bit of what appeared to be alien lichens, or some other simple plant-like forms.

He breathed from his little oxygen bottle, holding on with one arm locked around his perch. It was a ledge with an outcropping and big cracks going up the back. From here on, it was a real Hail-fucking-Mary kind of climb.

It was there. It looked impossible. How Helmuth did it was a bit of a mystery. The doctor hadn't impressed him as an athletic type. Mind you; doctors are health nuts...the thoughts raced, as he hung there, undecided!

But that's just stupid.

What am I doing, clinging on to my last few moments?

Or wasting one last opportunity?

He reached out.

It was no good. His arm was too short! But Helmuth was no taller than he. How the hell did he do it? Nadir studied the situation, knowing time was not on his side. Soon enough, his knees would start to shake again.

The position of his feet was wrong. He pulled back, took slow, deep breaths, no panic.

He went down a few feet, rested, and cleared his mind of the fear.

"This is it, now or never," he told himself. "Start off on the right fucking foot...you stupid bastard."

Climbing back up, he notched his left foot, propelled himself up another foot and a half. Lock in the right foot, hand on, hand off...hand into the inch-wide crack. As deep and as firmly as he could get it.

Nadir tried to keep his body as close to the wall as he could, and slowly straightened up. His clutching hand found what it was looking for. One last moment of intense fear and courage, and then he stood on the ledge. He crouched carefully, and saw how slippery it was. Tempted to fall on his knees, to kiss the stone; but he moved well back from the edge before he felt comfortable.

Lungs tight...he needed to keep moving. Hacking and gasping for breath. It took a long time to recover his equilibrium. His guts ached with the need to puke. The water was only three metres wide, perhaps three or four centimeters deep. Yet this, along with other streams was sufficient to keep life going down below. It was the slimy, mouldy stuff growing beside it which made staying here dangerous. He had a mental picture of himself tripping, sliding, slithering to the brink...a man, falling at a hundred kilometres per hour, reaching out desperately, trying to clutch at branches centimetres beyond his fingertips.

He smiled in spite of himself.

The doctor left a few signs. A track. The doctor has slipped here. Stones, newly-disturbed from their position. Wet on one side, dirty on the other. Nadir bent to touch the water.

Warmer than expected.

Carefully he made his way up the tunnel running under the ice cap. In places the ice seemed quite rotten and fairly thin, to judge by the light shining through and dazzling his eyes. Maybe he could break out, and make the trek successfully down the mountain, if he was lucky.

If cold, hunger, oxygen starvation or exposure, animals, didn't get him first. If the doctor didn't get him first. This was a one-way trip. There was no way in hell he could make it back down from the waterfall.

He considered himself lucky to stand upright. The underside of the glacier was honey-combed with riverine passages, but many were too small to explore. Hopefully the roof would have collapsed somewhere, or he would have to literally climb up through an ice tunnel. He listened to the water, gurgling as he followed along, but heard no other noises. Occasional pops and cracks seemed to come from the glacier itself. The sooner he could get out the better. The air seems better here, he noted with relief. The way trended downhill. Thank God.

Suddenly he came to it. Sunlight flooded his eyes, and he had to feel his way forward, blinking back the warm tears that gushed from his eyes. The light, the unfamiliar cold wind blasting his face...he wept for joy. He tripped over something soft and yielding.

Nadir realized in shock, that he was crouching beside a dead man. The doctor perhaps was blinded as well? He examined the body as best he could, barely able to see. This job, unpleasant though it was, could be done by feel. His eyes watered uncontrollably, but he didn't think he was crying. It was just the brightness...

Dr. Jeffrey Helmuth had broken a femur, and shot himself in despair.

Half an hour, an hour passed and he worried about snow blindness. Finally he could see well enough to travel. The doctor tried to climb up and out, and hadn't made it.

Too much of a hurry, perhaps. There was a small pack, and several near-empty oxygen bottles. He shrugged the strap over his shoulder and measured the climb ahead of him.

Nadir made it.

He looked at the gun. He tossed it back in the hole. He had his own.

Leave the evidence for others to examine.

What he needed now was to find his way down safely from the glacier, and get to a lower altitude as soon as possible. He knew that many crevasses, many hidden under soft snow, lay ahead of him.

He knew that the most important thing, the most important tool right now, was his own head. He had food for a couple of meals, and water was not a problem. The thing to do was to stay dry and warm.

Six days later the helicopter found him, as he slid down out of the jungle and onto the paved helipad beside the office trailers. It was parked there disconsolately, as the last of the searchers had only this morning arrived. The general consensus of opinion was that the tunnel diggers would find the bodies sooner or later. Hopefully.

"Hey! Isn't that Mr. Nadir?" someone yelled in disbelief; and he had to laugh, for he knew that already.

Then he slipped into unconsciousness. It was finally over, as strong hands gripped him now, falling...falling.

End

Louis Shalako began writing for community newspapers and industrial magazines. His stories appear in publications including Perihelion Science Fiction, Bewildering Stories, Aurora Wolf, Ennea, Wonderwaan, Algernon, Nova Fantasia, and Danse Macabre. He lives in southern Ontario and writes full time.

http://shalakopublishing.weebly.com

