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 hi
s 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…