Poodie James

excerpt

heart attacks before. We would have lost two people if it hadn’t
been for Mr. James over there, and Engine Fred.”
“Engine Fred; is that name familiar to you?”
“He’s been one of our most faithful non-paying customers since
the 1920s. Every Great Northern detective from here to Minneapolis
knows Fred. He’s a favorite of the freight crews, right up there
with Sawdust Charlie and High Iron Jack. Now, I think he’s
moved into first place. I’m surprised that he showed up here. We
haven’t seen him on the road for more than a year.
“What caused the derailment?”
“Track separation. It looks like loose spikes gave way in a couple
of rotten ties, and that led to pressure on a faulty weld. It’s the sort
of thing we’d like to think routine maintenance would catch, and it
should have.”
“Could there have been some other cause?”
“Other cause, Chief? I’m a little behind you here.”
“Could a person have made this happen?
“Oh. Well, we always look for that possibility. We’ve had
derailments caused by debris on the tracks, but that’s when a train’s
highballing, not when it’s moseying through a town, like this one
was. And we didn’t find logs or concrete blocks or boulders. That’s
the kind of thing you look for.”
Poodie stood in the half circle of men watching the tank car’s
undercarriage dangle from the crane’s big hook.
“Mr. Hall,” Spanger said, “could someone have done something
to the rails?”
“Section of rail removed, switches opened, bolts cut; that sort of
thing happens, but not in this one. No, I’m afraid we’ll find that the
maintenance gangs overlooked a deteriorating situation. After so
many trains pushed on the weak section, it finally gave way and
that rail swung out of position at just the wrong time. I don’t think
I’d like to be the district supervisor around here.”
“You’re sure there was no sabotage?”
“I’m sure, Chief. That’s how it’s going into my report. But if you…

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562868

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08W7SHCMV

In the Quiet After Slaughter

excerpt

Larry pestered his parents to let us go off on our own. They wanted
us to take Lenore.
The youngest Cameron was a timid 10-year-old with a mouthful of
braces. She wore glasses held together with electrician’s tape. In all the
years we’d lived on the same street, I’d never once seen Lenore smile.
– Maybe next time, Larry said. Sorry, sis.
After the three of them had left, Larry and me doffed our shirts
and sprawled on a bench facing the sea. Lifeguards were perched in
elevated lookouts, walkie-talkies crackling, binoculars trained on
the overcooked swarms frolicking at water’s edge.
A pair of giggling girls passes in a gust of perfume.
Females liked Larry; they hardly noticed me. There was always a
couple following him at school. He trained his hair with a blow
dryer like the singer Bobby Vinton. He had muscles; I, freckles.
– ’Merican poontang, Larry said. It was a new word; he liked
using it.
The pair sat at the end of our bench.
– The tall one is mine, Larry says.
– Are you from around here?
– Nope, Larry replied. Tennessee. You?
– Canada, said one.
– We never met American guys before, the friend gushed.
– It’s your lucky day, Larry winked.
– I’m Cindy, the tall one said, sliding closer. She’s Corrine.
Larry introduced himself as Tate. I, he said, was Ken.
As the girls huddled, he whispered to me: I changed my mind.
The other one’s got bigger jugs.
Larry handed out Camels and corralled us around a lighter. For
just an instant Corrine’s shoulder brushed mine. The heat off her
tanned skin surged through mylimbs like a jolt of something powerful.
Another body. A woman’s.
– Are you guys going to the fairgrounds tomorrow night? asked
Cindy. There’s going to be live bands.
– For sure, Larry said.
– Have you got wheels?
Larry indicated a Corvette across the street and dangled a set of
keys — his house keys.
– It’s got a .327, he said.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562874

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0980897971

In the Quiet After Slaughter

excerpt

spaghetti western. The ballplayer tried willing the inebriated soldiers—
wrestling in the dirt now, smashing bottles, urinating in the
ditches — to vanish, all a mirage. For the film crew to put away its
equipment and the brutal caliph to strip off the fake moustache and
disappear inside a trailer.
But it wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t a movie. The comandante was
swaggering through the clearing.
– El hombre comunista! he roared, a prosecutorial digit aimed at
Paco. And then, leaning over Witherspoon, Your Mexican friend is
not a student, yanqui! He is a dangerous radical!
But Witherspoon’s formal education had ended prematurely. He
wouldn’t have been able to identify a communist if one was standing
before him, although he seemed to recall being told that to be one
was a bad thing. Since puberty his had been a world of curves and
splitters, of wind sprints through a freshly cut outfield grass.
There had been an American teammate in the Florida State
League, a prospect from California. Every time he struck out, which
was often, the kid muttered, Effing commie bastards! For the longest
time Witherspoon believed a communist to be a southpaw who
threw breaking balls.
The comandante ordered his centurions to strap Paco to a tree. A
mango was placed atop his head. The soldier reached into
Witherspoon’s duffel bag and removed a baseball. It was Wild
Man’s talisman, the ball used in his first professional victory. He’d
intended to place it alongside his father’s war medals.
– It’s very warm today, the comandante addressed the crowd. We
need some entertainment, no?
Witherspoon was familiar with the expectations of spectators —
knew well that where they collect in sufficient numbers, so must
there be a performance.
First in Spanish, then in English, the comandante explained his
intentions:
– If the gringo knocks the mango from his friend’s head, the rebel
can continue his journey. We’ll pick him up another time. But if he
misses . . . The comandante’s gold tooth gleamed under the blazing
afternoon sun.
Witherspoon rose to his feet. He placed his fingers along the
seams of the baseball. A murmur rippled through the crowd.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562874

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0980897971

Poodie James

excerpt

darkness and silence, currents of air on his skin, the scent of the
apples surrounding him. I am floating in space. I am with my
mother, in her arms. I am safe inside her, waiting to be born, fearing
to be born, wanting to be born. The perfume drifting down
from his apple trees became the fragrance of his mother, the breeze
the dark swirl of her hair falling around him. Without my silence I
could not hear her laughter. He saw her laugh, felt her laugh, heard
her laugh, listened to her laughter echo down the years.
When he opened his eyes, the moon was clear of the ridge and
yellowing. The smoke of a cooking fire spiraled near the tracks and
Poodie wondered if anyone he knew was among the hobos in the
jungle. As he fell asleep, the moonlight etched the pattern of the
window across the foot of his bed.
He awakened hours later to a shuddering of the earth. In the
dimness, he saw a dish fall from the table to the floor, land on edge,
roll to the wall, stand against it for a second, fall flat and shatter.
He pulled the covers over his head and readied himself for another
shock. It did not come. He lay still for a minute, then eased his way
out of bed and across the floor. He opened the door slowly. Just
beyond the hobo jungle, he saw a red glow, and smoke. He pulled
on his clothes, went outside, grabbed his wagon and headed along
the path toward the tracks. It was as bright a moonlit night as that
one so long ago when the three men dragged him out of his cabin
and beat him. A hundred yards south of the jungle, a locomotive
was on its side, cars twisted off the track behind it, the one nearest
the engine capsized and on fire.
Poodie left the wagon and hurried down the tracks. Liquid from
the burning tank car flowed off the grade in molten rivulets, igniting
the brush between the Gellardy orchard and the tracks. He
caught sight of a big man clambering up the side of the overturned
locomotive. Twenty feet from the wreck, he walked into a wall of
heat. When he reached the engine, he looked up to see the man
gesturing to him to climb into the cab. He was saying something,
but Poodie could not make out what it was. The man grimaced,
waving him forward, and in the light of the flames Poodie saw…

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562868

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08W7SHCMV

Poodie James

excerpt

Pete Torgerson glared at the the head of the health and safety
department, then again read the report on his desk. Poodie James’s
cabin was sanitary and safe. The wood stove was well away from
the wall, sitting on sheet metal and properly vented. The wiring
was good. The plumbing, a cold water sink, was up to code. The
outhouse was 50 feet from the cabin, sitting over a pit that had
recently been dug. No, the health officer told the mayor, Mr. James
did not know the inspector was coming. It was a surprise visit. No,
he said, the inspector was not a friend of Mr. James, he had never
met him. There was no need to put the comment in the report, but
the inspector said that he had never seen such an orderly little
house—a place for everything and everything in its place. No,
there was no reason for a second inspection. He wasn’t entirely sure
that the first one had been legal, but the mayor had ordered it.
Torgerson scowled and gestured that the meeting was over. He
swiveled his chair around and stared out the window.
September 25
High school is out so students can help with the harvest. They are everywhere,
in packing sheds and warehouses, picking in orchards. Little kids
not so long ago, at the pool, learning to swim, playing in the park. They
wave when I go by. I see them say, “Hi, Poodie.” My friends, almost
grown up. Marcie on the dock at the Red Chief warehouse, eating lunch
in the sun with other girls. My good friend Marcie.
Marcie Welch watched her hands reach onto the conveyor for the
fruit, twist the golden apples into their paper wraps, settle them
into their pasteboard niches, layer after layer, box after box with its
blue premium Red Chief label. They were off to—where, she
wondered—Seattle, New York, London, Hong Kong, South
America, Spain? Would a handsome young Spaniard admire one
of her apples, polish it on his sleeve, imagine that a beautiful girl
had packed it, fantasize about her before he bit through its skin
into the perfection of the white flesh? Would he live in a castle,
ride a white stallion when he inspected his vineyards, …

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562868

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08W7SHCMV

In the Quiet After Slaughter

excerpt

vapourized. If Fender was still in the vicinity, people reasoned,
someone should have seen him by now. Fears that he might have
wandered into unfamiliar territory, into an unsympathetic street or
— worse — into the clutches of a you-know-what, were left unexpressed.
The All-Stars sought solace in the Ouija board.
If he was on the run from welfare authorities, the prevailing suspicion,
few knew their local geography like our Fender. He knew where
the best berries grew, the bountiful vegetable gardens. He was familiar
with the dumpsters likely to yield the most refundables.
As news of his disappearance spread, more volunteers turned up
at Esther Rhodes’ door. Kids skipped classes, adults booked off
work. I was press-ganged into acting as courier and delivery boy,
the search party’s factotum. A photo of Fender was mimeographed
and taped to the rear window of automobiles. It was posted in the
laundromat and on the notice board in the community centre.
The disappearance galvanized the Project. Mobilization became a
kind of social event. It brought people out of their homes — out of
themselves, a respite from their own narrow concerns. New friendships
were formed, animosities put on hold. The fellow who broadcast
the hockey games went on air to plead with Fender to return
home, as we knew the boy carried his transistor. Porch lights were
left on throughout the night.
Finally, the boy missing two weeks, evidence turned up that he
was still alive. An old gentleman from the top of Normandy Drive
reported that the previous evening he had been wakened by a noise.
In the morning he found a branch of his plum tree stripped clean.
– Fender was crazy about plums, wasn’t he? inquired one of the
All-Stars.
– He raids our tree every summer, confirmed Alice Travers, the
Rhodes’ next-door neighbour.
– You never know, someone else cautioned. Plums aren’t ripe yet.
It could’ve been the starlings.
– I found this, the man said.
He spread a sheet of paper on Mrs. Rhodes’ coffee table. It was a
tracing of the footprint he’d found in the wet grass. One of Fender’s
shoes was retrieved. It was a match.
Then a lady living on Vimy Crescent called to say that a few nights
previous she had heard someone tearing up her tomato plants.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562874

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00731WSPE

In the Quiet After Slaughter

excerpt

work-in-progress. On account of all the babies about, it was known
as Diaper Hill.
A few years after the family took possession of its new bungalow,
Mr. Rhodes, who drove a truck, was killed in a traffic accident. The
Mrs. had already lost her firstborn, a girl, to a heart defect.
In the early days of the Project the streets were unpaved and
unidentified, lined on both sides by the skeletons of unfinished
homes. It was a world of lumber and brick, of bulldozers and mud,
the air rank with dust and diesel fumes.
Fender dropped out of school in Grade 8. He busied himself
doing jobs others declined: cutting lawns and weeding gardens,
washing cars, helping out with paper routes — whatever he was
asked to do, whatever he was capable of. He was rarely seen without
his red baseball cap.
When I was working for Kellman’s Drugs, stocking shelves and
delivering prescriptions, Fender was running lunches to store owners
too busy to abandon their counters. He swept walkways and cleaned
windows. Occasionally somethingwould happen to remind us Fender
was different. He would anchor himself on the gravelled shoulder of
Rupert Street at rush hour, oblivious to the cars speeding under his
nose, unresponsive to concerns for his safety.
– Where’s he going so fast? Fender might ask of a passing motorist.
Fire someplace?
And if you, strolling by, should shrug your shoulders and walk
on, Fender might give chase, as he once did with me, whispering
into my ear, Maybe he’s going to the dentist! Maybe he’s late for
work! Then he flashes those green eyes of his as though it’s you
who’s the simpleton.
Most of the time, though, Fender was simply a little strange. He
was a devoted fan of the lowly Vancouver Canucks, following their
ineffectual tribulations on a transistor radio. He felt compelled to
announce each home-club goal to the world, running breathless into
shops to deliver the news.
More troubling was Fender’s habit of scaling telephone poles. He
used the steel service pegs running up both sides to make his ascent,
positioning himself centimetres from a live wire.
– It’s dangerous, Sgt. Toby McManus warned Mrs. Rhodes. The
lad will sizzle.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00731WSPE

Poodie james

excerpt

It must have been the old man’s genes, he thought; I wish
he’d been alive to see it.
George Pearson’s cry of golf agony brought Jeremy back to
1948.
“Look at that,” George said. “I can’t hit out of that tangle, especially
with a tree in the way.”
“Just use your 12 iron,” Jeremy told him, and chortled when
Pearson kicked the ball onto the fairway. “That’s a stroke,” he said.
“Don’t lose track of it.”
At lunch in the clubhouse, Jeremy gazed across the green
expanse of the course, taking in the order of the town across the
river, its bustle, the leafiness of its neighborhoods, the orchards
marching up into the brown foothills. Edging along just beyond
the river, a locomotive hauled cars of apples headed east.
“The steamers used to put in there right below the foot of
Orondo Street with wheat from upriver to be loaded on the trains”
he told Pearson. “What a jumble of a place it was. The buildings
were shacks and lean-tos, for the most part. The electric plant up in
the canyon had been running for a year or so, but most of the shanties
had oil lamps, and in winter lots of them burned down. The
streets were paved with dust that choked you when the weather
was dry and mud that tried to suck you under when the snow
melted. There were boulders in the middle of the avenue. When
she saw the place, Winifred wanted to get back on the train. It was
hard living, but folks kept coming. The population went from
fewer than 500 at the turn of the century to almost 2000 when we
came. They weren’t all farmers and families and legitimate businessmen.
There were half a dozen taverns with heavy gambling,
and until 1908 there was a booming red light district. The Dispatch
had something to do with ending that, and with voting out booze,
too.”
“The Dispatch, meaning Jeremy Stone,” Pearson said.
“And Winifred. This town had to be cleaned up if it was going
to develop properly.”
“I won’t mention Ted and Angie’s.”

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562868

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08W7SHCMV

In the Quiet After Slaughter

excerpt

mysterious fusion of lotion, cream and paint, the ancient alchemy of
pulchritude. The new hairdo balanced precariously atop her head, a
plumage of swirls and frizzy ringlets, every strand tinted and teased.
Mirror, mirror on the wall . . .
My brother appeared shortly, two pals in tow. Burt was 16. The
tattoo of a cobra snaked up his bony arm and under a Harley-
Davidson T-shirt. The fuzz germinating on his chin had the lax bristle
of pubic hair.
– Home, Ma!
The walls trembled as the trio stampeded down the basement stairs.
– Where the heck have you been? my mother asked sleepily. The
pills the doctor said would help control her mood swings had kicked
in. So had the delayed reactions.
Burt emerged from the basement moments later, a bulky paper
bag tucked under an arm.
– Later, Ma!
– TV dinners are in the freezer, she said. Or you can warm up the
meat loaf.
Myfather had promised to be home by six; I heard him. Quarter past
seven finds my mother positioned at the living room window waiting
for the Plymouth to slide down Mons Drive, the slamming shut
of its rusty door, his workboots on the porch. She sucks on a Pilsner,
shredding its label with swipes of her sharp crimson nails.
– Better be home soon, she mutters, throttling the bottle’s neck.
Bloody well better.
By 9 p.m. a half-dozen empties collide at her feet. Images from the
black-and-white TV cavort across the walls. Whenever she darts to
the bathroom I hear the tinkling of pee, a rattling of pills.
I have a morning paper route and must retire early. From my bedroom
directly below I hear her heels pacing the floor; they sound like a
pair of spikes being driven through lumber. Then she moves to the telephone
where she begins ordering the Legion bartenders to page Dad.
– You think I don’t know he’s there? she accuses. Think I don’t
know what he’s up to?
The last sound I hear before drifting off is a bottle cap skimming
across the floor, a stone skipping the surface of a pond.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562874

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00731WSPE

Swamped

excerpt

But this time, when they reach the water their dad leads them
to a movie theater where the film Ulysses is playing in which Nicolas’s
favorite actor, Kirk Douglas, plays the role of Odysseus. It is only the
second time in their lives they have entered a theater. The first time
was in Crete when, after prodding from the schoolteacher, their parents
took them to Chania to see The Greatest Story Ever Told, a film
about the life of Jesus. Today they walk into the cool darkness of the
theater to enjoy the heroics of Odysseus, which they have learned
about in school, and how he managed to escape the horrible Cyclops
and all other adventures he had before reaching his home island of
Ithaca again and being reunited with his son, Telemachus, and his
wife Penelope. The boys knew the whole storyline by heart, and they
are entranced to see it all acted out on the huge glowing screen of the
movie theater.
When the movie is over, they walk outside and struggle for a moment
to adjusting to the sunlight again, but they are soon distracted
by the ice cream cones their dad buys them, which they relish down
to the last lick. There are a lot of people on the promenade, strolling
from one side of the harbor to the other, and the boys and their parents
slowly make their way to the White Tower where the boys play
with other children their age while the parents rest on benches
nearby and keep a close eye on them.
When evening arrives and the sun is almost on the western horizon,
they climb the road to Sikies. Nicolas holds his father’s hand and
Eteocles his mom’s. It is a warm evening and Eteocles feels sweaty.
He rubs his face on his mom’s arm, absorbing a little of the coolness
of her skin, and she looks at him and says to her husband, “He’ll be
a woman’s man when he grows up.” His father only smiles, walking
proudly, happy to be with his wife and his children again, far away
from the difficult days in Crete where he was tortured almost every
night by the local police to pressure him to spy on the customers
coming and going at his popular café, which he steadfastly refused
to do. And now it is a pleasant day of April, and Eteocles and Nicolas
are at school in Salonica.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562976

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08WP3LMPX