Louis Shalako: The Shape-Shifters, Chapter Nineteen. Louis Shalako.

Sunday, January 10, 2021

The Shape-Shifters, Chapter Nineteen. Louis Shalako.

Nearly new, with B.C. plates, incidentally.

Chapter Nineteen

Paranoia comes from the Greek…

Paranoia means beside oneself. It’s a valid description.

In a very real sense, Steve Isaacs was beside himself. At twenty-eight years old, he had been a pipe-fitter in Fort McMurray, Alberta for almost six years. Up until recently, that is.

Steve was one of life’s unlovable types—a bigot, an injustice collector, and a pathologically-jealous spouse. He cheerfully admitted all of these things to himself.

Lately Steve had been exhibiting a few symptoms. He had the disordered thinking, the paranoia and emotional derangement which are warning signs. But, rarely are such unfortunate individuals surrounded by trained observers in the days and weeks leading up to a shooting spree, mall attack, or just going postal. They were classic symptoms of a severe mental illness, one that might be triggered at any moment. No one cared. It was a year and a half since he last saw his kid. It just didn’t seem fair somehow. Steve was sporting a full beard, lush and blonde, and driving a nearly-new gold-colored Caravan. No one who knew him would recognize the slight, five-foot ten-inch figure of Isaacs. Back then, he had seemed like such a nice guy.

He kept to himself, he was polite, and everyone liked him. But since going out west to work, everything had changed.

Everything was different now. All he had ever tried to do was his best, and it was never good enough. No matter where he went, or how hard he worked, he just never seemed to get anywhere. No matter how much money he made and sent home, it was never good enough for Kiera.

Isaacs pulled into a parking slot, and let it idle while he went in to get a room. This drive-in motel was about four klicks out of town, by his recollection. He was reassured to see the Asian owner was some new guy. Steve had never seen him before and the feeling was mutual.

The fellow gave no hint of recognition when processing his new credit card with the fake name. He didn’t even blink.

Steve is beside himself.

“Do you have a phone book?” Steve asked in a friendly, yet neutral voice.

“There’s one in every room, sir.” The manager-slash-owner nodded.

“Thanks.” Steve took the key from the outstretched hand of Glenn Yan, proprietor.

That’s what it said on the carved wooden sign on the wall. It had been done with a router. He noticed in approval that there were no dust-pricks in the lacquer. There were Asian-language newspapers on the counter, but nothing really local or even in English.

Excellent.

“We have Sichuan smorgasbord from four to six every night, all you can eat, eight bucks.” Mister Yan regarded Steve.

“Sounds good.”

“Good, cold beer.”

“That sounds good too.” Steve was heading for the door.

He was quickly ensconced in room number eighteen, seventy bucks a night but what could he do? He studied his provincial road map, a recently purchased town map, picked up at the tourist bureau, and the trusty phone book. They still lived at the same address, and in the intervening months, he doubted if the old streets had changed much, but the look of the place was so different. When he last left, the summer was at its peak, now it was just so bleak. It was all so barren, small and dirty-looking now, and from the big hill at the west end, you could see from one end of town to the other. Steve was a man with a plan. He was fairly convinced that no one was following him. Ultimately those drivers who appeared suspicious, usually turned out to be someone going to a different interchange, but it could be scary.

All paid up for three nights in advance, he resolved to try to remember to shove the key in through the mail slot if he left in a hurry. People tended to remember someone who walked off with a room key. The key itself was only worth three bucks, but there was the pain-in-the-ass element, the bother of having to go to the hardware store. It was so much easier to remember an asshole. Be colorless, he resolved. Be forgotten.

Steve tended to obsess over the details, but had lost sight of the big picture. He had lost his perspective and his sense of humor. It all came down to the fact that she had cheated on him, no matter how you looked at it. He couldn’t prove it, and didn’t need to.

He simply knew. When the court ordered him to pay support and alimony to the tune of forty-five hundred a month, with no visitation rights, it was the last straw. His vanity wounded, Steve honestly believed he had been made a fool of. And that was a hell of a lot of money. He was now a man with a mission. To get in, get it done, and get out. He simply couldn’t let Kiera get away with it.

Admittedly Steve made good money, but by the time you took off income tax, pension contributions, unemployment insurance, worker’s compensation payments, he really didn’t have that much left, and rents were incredibly expensive in the north. Throw in the cost of car payments, insurance, not that a couple of driving-while-intoxicated raps helped with the rates. Just when you started to get caught up, some son of a bitch judge comes along and hits you with a five-thousand dollar fine for having a couple of drinks. The insurance company hears about it.

Then you lose your job because you can’t drive the company trucks, and then your pogy cheque is late for some reason. The landlord is screaming even though you have money coming.

Then you get to join the ranks of the homeless. That was the tipping point for Steve.

***

Janet was on the phone with Molly. Molly was her best friend although they hadn’t spoken in a couple of weeks.

Two screaming kids, about to go on welfare.

“So, did the kids have a good time at Don’s parent’s place?” Molly was up for a chat.

“Yes, they did. They always go a little crazy over the kids, but it helps to make up for what I can’t give them. I don’t think it will spoil them.”

Her deceased husband’s parents were pretty good about Halloween, Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving and birthdays. They were just really good people and she was lucky to have them. This thought caused some distress. The sight of Don’s father, a tall, lean, tanned man in his late sixties, always reminded her of what might have been, what had been lost. She and Don might have grown old together. They should have grown old together. Perhaps sensing this, Molly’s instincts where her friend were concerned were always pretty good, she kept poking and prodding Janet, then backing off to let her recover, and then hitting her with questions again.

“My kids were perfect beasts.” Molly was being philosophical, but. “Rick came home and we spent like crazy, but he’s going back next week.”

Molly’s husband worked in Saskatchewan, and only got home for a couple of weeks every ten weeks. It made things hectic for Molly when he was home. Her perky, red-headed friend carried the burden single-handedly when he was gone. Janet used to be jealous, back in high school, of Molly’s glossy, coppery mop of thick, straight hair, and her alabaster-fine skin.

That was before she came into her own, and discovered that medium-blue eyes, soft blonde eyebrows, and corn-silk tresses had an allure to the opposite sex as well. Due to attending at a Catholic high school, where the uniforms were white blouses, blue jackets, and blue skirts with white stockings, her coloring, while not as spectacular as Molly’s, had been well-suited to the school uniforms.

Janet wasn’t sure how the subject came up, but had let something slip about Jean.

“Tell me about this guy.” Molly’s intimate voice was right there in her ear. “You can tell me. You know I can keep a secret.”

“Oh, God, Moll. There’s not much to tell, but he bought me a coffee and a Danish and we talked.” Janet went on. “He seems nice, but I really didn’t get a chance to ask too many questions.”

“Well, I hope you’re sitting down.” Molly made the announcement. “He’s living in the old Roberts place on the River Road.”

There was a stunned pause on Janet’s part, and then her friend went on.

“The housekeeper comes in to the store two or three times a week and Jimmy Rebbutts overheard her talking to another old lady.”

“Oh really.” Janet wondered if she was supposed to put this information to some use.

“I’ve got his phone number here. I had to look under Roberts but the old woman’s name is Andrews.” Molly was serious.

“I couldn’t.”

“I’ll bet he’d come over for dinner. The real problem with men is when you want to get rid of them.” Molly’s voice had a note of humor. “Tell him you want to thank him for helping you the other day. Think of something, girl. He sounds so French.”

Molly’s imagination was getting the better of her, but Janet wrote the number down dutifully enough. The odds of her making use of it were pretty small, though. What would she say to the guy?

“I’m laid off and I can’t pay the rent. I’ve got two screaming kids and I’m about to go on welfare. Please sweep me off my feet and carry me away on your big white charger, you big old handsome knight in shining armor, you.”

It just didn’t make any practical sense at all.

What could she offer someone like Jean?

Janet had a sudden mental picture as Molly went on and on about her hubby and her kids, her in-laws, Molly was bringing her up to date on everything so far. Janet saw a naked man, flushed with exertion, and a big hairy chest. She saw the man kissing her all over, mostly on her breasts and between the legs. A long, deep, hard kiss. The man had Jean Gagnon’s face, although it was a little fuzzy. She had trouble bringing it back in any detail, but the impression was good. Some of the other, more intimate details were better focused. Memory was a hazy reconstruction, but her imagination was crystal clear. Janet was momentarily shocked at herself, but only for a second. It’s just that it had been so long. It was a rare sort of a thought for her, lately. A nice, hairy round bum, that’s the ticket. What was startling was the clarity, the immanence of the image, the sheer raw pornography of it. The piquancy, the primacy, her own desires were making themselves sharply known in no uncertain terms. Where did that thought come from? She wasn’t exactly a virgin, not with two children to show for it. Don and Janet had mutually enjoyed each other in a comfortable physical intimacy. But this sort of thing, she had never bestowed that on a stranger, on a whim and an impulse.

“Are you still there?”

“Yes.” There was a long moment of quiet on the line…

But she wasn’t. She wasn’t really there at all. The revelation hurt in its self-honesty. She had needs…needs. She saw that in a new way.

“I wouldn’t have the guts. He is cute, though.”

Jean was a cute guy, and you just really wouldn’t want to fall in love right now.

***

It's a wonderful idea...

The phone rang. Jean bolted for it. First of all, it rang so seldom, secondly because he had just stepped from the shower, and wondered how long it had been ringing. Nimbly grabbing a towel off a hook as he exited the room, he wrapped it around his hips as he strode into the bedroom.

“Hello?”

“It’s Janet.” Her words sounded loud in his ear, yet oddly breathless, as her voice came over the wire. “I was just wondering if I could make dinner for you. You’re all alone, and it’s Christmas, and everything.”

“That would be wonderful.” His mind was racing.

Well, she was certainly a nice lady. His heart thumpity-thumped. It was a wonderful idea.

“The kids are going over to their grandparents. They’re going tobogganing for the day, and they’re staying overnight.” She explained, her warm voice close beside him.

There was a silence.

“It’s just leftovers. But bring an appetite.”

“Okay.” He was smiling, which somehow came across in the voice. “Your address is?”

“We’re at four-twenty Macdonald Street. Little white house on the north side, you’ll see the truck.”

Jean had suddenly gone very shy, rather low in the voice. Molly was sitting right there, barely holding her glee in check, fighting to avoid a giggle or worse, any kind of stray commentary. When Janet hung up, Molly was brandishing a pair of shears.

Molly: funny when she gets involved with a project.

“Let me at you, girl. We’re going to lighten it up in front, and I have the prettiest pearl-drop earrings for you to wear.”

Janet suppressed a few of her many misgivings. Moll was funny when she got really involved with a project.

With his shower routine interrupted, Jean hung up the phone, picturing Janet in his mind as he wandered absently back to the bathroom. He closed the door to keep the room warm and thoroughly toweled himself off before he got too much of a chill. Jean distantly acknowledged a partial erection, which was distinctly unwelcome right about now. It went away, thank God for that. Just think about basketball. Think about seven years in jail—

Something was calling him, like the distant soughing of the wind through the tops of a row of scotch pines. Perhaps it was his first love, his first shy kiss, those first few fumbling opening moves, perhaps it was the soft voice and shining eyes of his first girlfriend. The one thing that stuck with him, the dim memory that it was from all that time ago, was the intimacy, the shared vulnerability. It was a secret knowledge that only two can share. In later years, married couples look back and wonder what happened? He had a kind of instinctive belief in that knowledge.

He was in surprisingly good physical shape, but then he was still young, barely. It was the stuff in between his ears that made him different. More mature, with a gravity beyond his years when he wasn’t cracking jokes and sharing unique thoughts that spewed out of his ever-active, ever-fertile brain. The trouble was, he didn’t know what he wanted.

Jean was at the height of his physical and mental powers. He was starting all over again from scratch, and it was all downhill from here.

Whatever he was going to do in life, had better get done real soon. When he thought of all the hopes, dreams and aspirations that had been snatched away from him, a hot jet of liquid anger would shoot through his belly, and he doubted if that would ever change.

At some point he just had to get on with some kind of life. He had his health, as the saying goes. He still had his self-respect.

What a shame it would be to waste it by not trying.

Jean went to the closet, the one on the right, where some of his great-uncle George’s personal things were still stored. He could try to find a jacket, and hope it didn’t smell too bad from moths and mold, moth-balls and such. There was a cluster of musty old bottles of wine on a shelf at the back of the kitchen pantry, he recalled.

He had nothing to lose, everything to gain, and expected nothing. Perhaps that was the proper way to look at it. At the very least, he might have made a friend, and that was really something these days. One thing for sure, most of these jackets were hopeless. The ancient plastic dry-cleaner bags were stuck right to them, glued on semi-permanently.