57. The Secret War, Chapter 7

Chapter 7

We all stood along the highway to get our bearings. Flippers whimpered, rubbing the pain from his worn fleece. Steam oozed from his body.

“Yer ‘bout a mile outta Prince Rupert,” explained Ed. “This here’s Highway 99—veers off to 97, then straight in ta town.”

“Why can’t we just drive into Prince Rupert,” I asked.

“Modalities,” responded Marbles, Summer, and Ski Mask in unison. Marbles went on, “We gotta fill the quota or there’s gonna be h-e-double-hockey sticks to pay.”

“Naw,” said Ed, “Compl’ca-shuns. Can’t go back. Me and Prince Rupert don’t get ‘long.”

“That’s fer sure,” said Marbles, giving me a wink—as if I’d understand. I didn’t understand.

Flippers was looking nervous; he clearly didn’t like the prospect of walking a mile into Prince Rupert. He clearly didn’t like the prospect of walking a short city block—or walking from the refrigerator to the recliner. In a way, he was now paying the price for mercilessly but inadvertently killing so many little sea turtles in his nets. It reminded me of page twenty in my beginner’s training manual: “What goes around, comes around.”

Ed looped his truck around and sped away—before I could ask him any questions.

After we looked at each other in dumb silence, we grudgingly began our trek toward Prince Rupert. Ski Mask picked rocks and sticks and chunks of ice along the road and dive bombed my feet. “Quit that!” I demanded.

Marbles and Summer took the lead. Flippers dragged behind, exhausted and depressed. I looked around, my left eye beginning to twitch. We were exposed. Even the ravens in the trees had gathered to surveil us. I wondered whether they were collared with transmitters to track us by some unseen, nefarious force. My training had indicated that animals were used as adjunct reconnaissance, but only rarely since they were prone to being unreliable—flying out of radio range or biting the transmitter--or to being eaten by other animals, unaware of the importance of their surveillance work. What I did know from my already extensive experience with ravens and crows is that they don’t Caw-Caw, as folklore claims. Instead, they HAW-HAW, HAW-HAW-HAW! They laugh. Tinged with mean spiritedness. The distinction is subtle, but CAW! sounds like they’re trying to clear crud from their throats and HAW! sounds like they are taking great merriment in the plight of those lumbering around below them. Like they know something we don’t know.

I wondered whether anyone else had noticed that fine distinction. And what was I going to do about it? I was in the intelli—information business. I read reports and I wrote reports—all for the welfare of the public. It seemed only appropriate that I fill out a report and send it to the Cornell Ornithological Society. I wouldn’t get paid. I already knew that. But, I thought, it might be an impressive credential if I earned the distinction of being a footnote in the annals of ornithological history. Just think of it—an asterisk in a textbook on the call of the raven—CAW!*. The asterisk would direct the reader’s attention to the bottom of the page, and in tiny print would be my name, not just anyone’s name, but my name, mine, all mine, along with HAW-HAW!  A person could do worse . . .

A snowball smacked me on the side of the head. Ski Mask ran ahead to Marbles and Summer, taunting me in the distance, “Got ya, got ya, got ya, got ya!”

The lights of Port Rupert lay ahead. On the edge of town, a Ramada Inn sign offered all Canadians 10% off their lodging and all the pancakes they could eat.

Beneath the beam of an owl lamp, we argued about the accommodations. Apparently, no one had any money. They all looked at me, arguing that as their designated leader, I was supposed to pay for everything. I told them I had not been allocated a budget for housing three other people and a ski mask. “Hey!” Ski Mask yelled. “I’m just a kid. I don’t got no money.” Finally, Summer pulled out a roll of dollars. “Short changing comes in handy,” she said proudly. “Now you dummies just sit here out of sight and I’ll get us a room.” She and Marbles walked up to the office. It occurred to me that they walked the same way. Must be a waitress thing, I thought. Flippers said that if he sat down he’d never get up again. I believed him. Steam poured from the top of his head. Ski Mask searched the ground for more weapons. My training told me to refrain from doing what came natural, which was to throttle Ski Mask into next Wednesday. The training manual said,

When confronted with rotten kids or rotten parents, it’s preferable to throttle the parents. Onlookers will be sympathetic, and the rotten kids will either feel guilty for getting their parents throttled or receive a throttling from their rotten parents when the whole rotten bunch gets home and hidden behind closed doors. Thus, the entire community will feel that about the right amount of justice had been meted out to the responsible parties, and people will pretty much go about their business as if nothing bad had ever happened in the first place.

***   ***   ***

When the door creaked open, Flippers rushed the motel room and collapsed on one of the two beds. He fell asleep immediately.

“I’m hungry,” complained Marbles. “Think there’s any corn pancakes?”

After about two hours of arguing about whether we should fetch take-out or order in (which presented security threats, considering that we wouldn’t have time to vet the delivery driver), we finally settled down and ate. Nobody talked, so I turned on the TV, only to catch an urgent news bulletin: “WAR WITH AMERICA, part 22, continues tomorrow night, right after Cooking with Mavis.”

“War?” I said. “What war?”

“Canada prefers to keep it on the down-low,” said Marbles.

“We’ve been winning it for years,” said Summer, “. . . and America doesn’t even know—“

“I don’t believe that,” I protested. “We have the most sophisticated—“

“Check the backs of magazines,” Summer hinted. “But you’ve got to know what to look for . . .  Check the ads . . . “

“Careful,” said Marbles.

“What’s that got to do with—“

Ski Mask cut me off, “Haven’t you noticed your country’s been getting dumber and dumber and dumber, Dumb-Dumb?”

“What?” I said.

Flippers mumbled in his sleep.

“Shhhhh,” said Marbles. “Don’t make me come over there.”

“Ahhh,” whined Ski Mask. “Come on. He don’t know nothing!”

“Well, this is just crazy,” I said. “You’re all crazy. I’m going for some fresh air.”

Within minutes, I had forgotten the conversation and wandered the streets of Prince Rupert. Totem poles seemed to be on every corner, some with angry Chiefs glaring down at me, some piled high with sea turtles, one with a little girl waving with all her fingers missing except for one, and a few had fallen over and looked none too happy about it. I stopped at a newspaper stand and decided to get a newspaper—The Prince Rupert Sound View. Maybe there was some news about “the war” in that.

When I returned to our room, a presence filled my mind, my nostrils, burning my eyes—that of a fully stocked refrigerator left unplugged to ferment in the dog days of summer. A single light glowed over a table and chair and dimly lit the rest of the room, where Marbles and Summers shared one bed. Flippers was flayed over another, and Ski Mask was lying crossways over Flippers. Momentarily, I thought of tearing Ski Mask’s ski mask off to see whether his face matched his ugly disposition. Then I thought better of it. They were all snoring.

I sat down and scanned the front page of the newspaper. With a headline of STOP THE DT’s, the lead story concerned the city council’s decision to place a moratorium on drive-thru businesses. “People need to get out and stretch their legs,” said the mayor. His view was supported by another council member: “And people need to look each other in the eye—friendly-like.” But not everyone agreed to the moratorium. One irate citizen was quoted, “Ain’t nobody’s business where people’s eyes is looking!” According to the newspaper, the mayor shot back angrily, “That’s just the porn talking, Earl!” Another quote, at the bottom of the page, identified as that of a land broker, stated, “If this goes through, there will be a crushing—“ Story continued on page 14. I paged through the newspaper to the last page, page 14, and found STOP THE DT’S, story continued next week from page 1--unless the salmon recipe contest winners run long. The rest of the page was a mish-mash of advertisements. I scanned them and found, under Community Events, “Support the War, come to One Toe’s barbecue and silent auction. Children welcome.” Further down the page, under Miscellaneous, was a cryptic message: “Forum Topic: Corn in Alaska. Will it reverse war’s big MO? Implications and Repercussions. BYOB.”