Yeah, says Nic. Well, he’s been calling me too. I don’t answer. But I feel guilty about it.
It is so quiet in this restaurant. I ask Nic if he is also feeling the earth rotate on its axis. He reminds me that we’re in a revolving restaurant at the top of Fort Garry Place in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, and that the day is such and such. I thank him. I apologize for giving him a hard time about the phone call and the book and he waves it away and says no, no. I want to hug him. I want to thank him for loving my sister and her rights and freedoms. I ask him if the waiter will stop this thing, the building, to let us off and he says yeah, there’s gotta be a switch somewhere. Or we could wave our arms in the air and yell faster, I say. We play a little tug of war with the check. I’ll get this. No, I’ll get this. We walk out into a tornado, it seems — it’s a prairie wind — and Nic tells me that in the days and weeks after I left for Toronto Elf had adopted a new mantra.
What was it? I ask him.
Yolandi, he says.
Me? You mean my name?
She joked that maybe she’d be able to will you back into existence.
I was only in Toronto, I say, not dead. Besides, she told me that her mantras inevitably dissolve into meaninglessness and then begin to terrify her. And I’m fighting tears again. And apologizing to Nic for something. He tells me that Elf feels the same way about days, about the days constantly coming around, over and over, the sun rises, birds begin to sing, there is a moment of possibility, of excruciating hope, and then it’s over, things darken, the day is simply another tease. There is no delivery from the torment of the days. It’s the repetition of things that kills her? I ask. Nic sighs. He doesn’t know. I trip over the uneven sidewalk and swear. He catches my elbow. Two boys walk past us with a canoe on their heads. We think they’re boys but all we can see are hairy calves and beat-up sneakers, oversized basketball shorts and bare backs. No heads or arms. By the amount of hair and muscle on their calves and their narrow waists I’d say they’re about fourteen or fifteen years old.
I wouldn’t put that in the river right now, Nic calls out to them. It’s too dangerous.
The boys stop and awkwardly turn themselves around, canoe and all, to listen.
We’re not, one of them says. Four brown legs and a canoe on their heads for a surface, they are a designer table, strange and beautiful.
Seriously, says Nic, the river is crazy right now. It’s moving at 380 cubic metres a second and it still has some ice on it.
The boys say nothing but the canoe shifts slightly and then we hear them softly mumbling to each other under the boat.
Don’t do it, says Nic. Maybe in a week or so. Then suddenly in one beautiful, fluid motion the boys lift the canoe off their heads, flip it over like a pancake and lay it down on the grassy boulevard next to the sidewalk.
Oh, hi, says Nic. I wave hello and smile. The boys are grim, young and tired.
What about downstream? says one of them, and Nic shakes his head vigorously.
No, no, not in any direction. Just stay out of the river for the time being. What’s the rush?
The boys tell us they’re trying to get to Roseau River Reserve.
That’s miles away, says Nic. That’s near the U.S. border, isn’t it?
We know, says one of the boys. We’re from there.
The boys tell us that they want to get home, back to their real mom. They’re foster kids in the city and they hate it and their foster parents beat them up and starve them, and the Warriors are trying to recruit them for operations and they’re going home, that’s it.
Now we have a situation, as the cops would call it. Neither Nic nor I know what to say or do. The boys shrug and mumble more things to themselves and bend to pick up the canoe, tipping it up and onto their shoulders.
You don’t have life jackets, I say. The boys ignore me.
Yeah, he says. Listen. Hang on. The boys have already begun to walk away. They stop walking again, but they don’t put the canoe back onto the ground. Nic and I walk over to where the boys are and stand next to them with the canoe acting as a barrier between us like a confessional booth.
You guys can’t do this, says Nic to the front, the bow, of the boat. His voice is low and stern, mano a mano. Nothing happens. The boys breathe in silence and the canoe gently bobs up and down a bit on top of them. Nic asks the boys if they have somebody waiting for them in Roseau River.
Yeah, everyone— I think it is the smaller one’s voice. We live there.
Okay, so how about this, says Nic. I’ll give you money for two bus tickets to Roseau River and you leave the canoe with me. I’ll bungee it to my car and keep it for you at my place and you can pick it up whenever it suits you, when you’re back in the city, or whatever. I’ll write down my address for you. How much are bus tickets to Roseau River? he asks.
There’s no response from under the canoe.
Tell you what, says Nic. I’m going to get my car now and drive it back here, so just hang on. Yoli, can you write down my address for these guys.
Probably around twenty bucks, says one of the boys. Twenty bucks each. Nic leaves to get his car and the boys fling the canoe down onto the grass again and sit down on top of it, waiting.
So what’s Roseau River like? I say. The boys shrug and stare off in the direction of the river. I am writing Nic’s address on a scrap of paper as he pulls up and parks. He hands the boys some money, enough cash for the bus tickets to Roseau River.
How about we drive you to the bus depot? he asks. The smaller boy says okay but the other boy says nah, we’ll get there ourselves. He leans over to take the cash from Nic, and the two begin to walk away towards Portage and Main, away from the river.
Hey, hang on, I call, you’ll need his address. I run after them and hand one of the boys the scrap of paper. He looks at it for a few seconds and puts it into his pocket and says c’mon to the other kid and they’re off, on their way to something they remember as being better than where they are.
Do you think they’ll buy bus tickets? I ask Nic. We’re driving back to his house with the canoe on the roof of the car.
Who knows, says Nic, but there was no way they were putting this thing into the river.
Do you think they’ll come back for the canoe?
Probably not, says Nic, but I hope so. It might be a borrowed canoe, if you get my drift.
You saved their lives, I say, and Nic waves it all away like he’d done earlier with the check from the restaurant, like he does with all falsely inflated proclamations that can’t be proven in a lab. My phone goes off and I read a text from Nora: I’ve been banned for like a lifetime from Winners for having a testers war with Mercedes. Will ripped the screen breaking in. No key. Xxxxoooo
I am talking to a police officer. I’ve been stopped on Sherbrook Street for texting while driving. I’m on my way over to Julie’s for a quick coffee before I have to pick up my mother at the airport. Somebody worth risking your life and your pocketbook for, I presume? says the cop. Pocketbook? I repeat. Well yes, I say, it’s my daughter. I just had to send her a quick message. But okay, sorry, the law and everything. How much is it?