A Boy of Good Breeding

six

Knute sat on the large windowsill in Hosea’s office looking out at that dog. The same dirty black one that had passed her in such a hurry. It looked like he was panhandling or something. He sat in front of the Wagon Wheel, looking up at everybody who passed, then back down the street to see if anybody else was coming. Not very many people were. Smallest town and everything. He reminded Knute of the dog who lived in the apartment block across from hers in the city. He would hang out his fourth floor window, front legs on the windowsill, and if he saw somebody wave he’d sort of wave back. Once Knute saw him on a leash going for a walk with his owner and he looked sheepish, like, Okay, yes, now you know, I’m a dog, that’s all there is to it.

Knute opened the window and stuck her head out.

“Hey!” she said to the dog. He looked up and nodded in a dog way but then returned to business. Somebody was coming down the street. Knute hadn’t done any of the things Hosea had asked her to do, except get the mail.

She sat on the windowsill and smoked and looked outside.

“Uh, hello,” she heard someone say.

“Can I help you?” she muttered and quickly butted her cigarette against the windowsill and threw it down to the street. She turned around and there was Hosea, wearing a hat. He looked vaguely stricken.

“Oh hell-o,” she said. “It’s you. Sorry. I hope you don’t mind me smoking in here.” Hosea put up his hand like a cop saying stop and shook his head. Knute wasn’t sure he was shaking his head no, he didn’t mind, or no, she shouldn’t smoke.

“Any luck?” he said. Again, Knute wasn’t sure what he meant exactly, so she said, “No. No luck. But I got your mail.”

“Oh. Thank-you,” said Hosea.

“No problem.” Knute thought Hosea’s hat looked good on him. It looked like it must have been a longtime favourite of his.

“So. Thanks again,” said Hosea. “Um, I think you’ll work out well. Did you, uh, have any problems?”

“No, nope, no problems,” said Knute. And she thought how Hosea must be wondering because first she didn’t have any luck and now she didn’t have any problems, so what exactly did she have?

“Well, then, you may as well go home,” said Hosea. “Thanks very much for your help. Well, not your help,” he said, “I mean your services, your time. How does two hundred and fifty dollars a week sound? For, oh, a few hours a day, if that’s, if that suits you.”

“Two hundred and fifty bucks?” Knute said. “That’s great. That’s fine.”

“Because, like I say,” said Hosea, “if you need more or if you think it’s not enough, just tell me.”

“Fine, yeah, I will, but it sounds okay to me. It sounds good.”

“Say hi to Tom,” said Hosea. He sat in his chair and smoothed out the surface of his desk. “I should really drop in again soon. We had a very nice visit the last time I did.”

“Yeah,” Knute said. “You should.” She smiled. Hosea smiled.

“Listen,” he said. “Here’s a key. To the office. In case I’m not around when you need to come in to work.”

“Okay.” Knute took the key. Need to come in to work, she thought. For what?

“Well, see ya,” she said.

“See ya. See ya … Knutie. Knute.”

She smiled as if to say whatever, call me whatever. “See ya,” she said again.

The dog was still sitting there. Dusk was falling in around him. The sky was the colour of raw meat. Knute walked past the dog.

“Hey, you desperado,” she said, “what are you waiting for?” No reply. She wondered if Summer Feelin’ would like a dog. But no, not with all of Dory’s redecorating. She kept walking. Past Darlene’s Unisex Salon, past Jim and Brenda’s Floral Boutique, past the Style-Rite, past Kowalski Back Hoe Services and Catering, past Willie Wiebe’s Western Wear, past the only set of lights in town.

Hosea’s hands were shaking. He opened his top right drawer and took out the orange Hilroy scribbler. His memory of what had just happened was, what was that colour, a dusty rose, a throbbing dusty rose? It took him to the doorway of Leander’s room, but not beyond. Thank God for my rubbers, he had thought. The babies, a problem with one of them. Go back, Hosea, he had told himself. Go back into the room. You stole the hat. You killed a man and stole his hat. No, I didn’t, thought Hosea. I didn’t kill him. He just died and I happened to be there. Shouldn’t you have told someone? Should I have? Yes, I should have. I know it. But then the doctor would have been angry with me. But this man died! I know, but surely someone will notice very soon. But the hat. Nobody saw me go in and nobody saw me go out, so nobody will know that I took his hat. And that makes it okay? People might think I killed him for his hat. Why did I take the hat? It’s a beautiful hat. Because I’m no good. I stole the hat of a dead man. I can’t be any good. That’s right, that’s right. You’re no cowboy, Hosea Funk. You’re a horse’s ass. So I am. So I am.

Hosea sat still in his chair. His head hurt. He opened his scribbler and turned to the Dead column and carefully entered the name Leander Hamm, and the date March 23, 1996. Then he put the scribbler back into the drawer and took out the letter from the Prime Minister and read it twice. He also took out the newspaper photo that showed the Prime Minister sleeping on a plane to Geneva. It was Hosea’s favourite. He had a full photo album of newspaper clippings and pictures of the Prime Minister. Shaking hands, singing the national anthem, talking into a reporter’s microphone, speaking in the House of Commons, kissing his beautiful wife, playing with his grandchildren, unveiling some monument or another, riding away in a chauffeur-driven limousine. But the one of the Prime Minister sleeping was his favourite. It was the only one of them all in which Hosea could see himself.

“Three babies,” Hosea whispered to himself. Three babies. If the third survives. Hmmmm. That’s three more people in Algren, one less, Leander Hamm, that makes two, fifteen hundred and two. That’s two too many, thought Hosea. But he still had a bit of time. The Prime Minister had promised to visit on July first, Canada Day. Hosea had a few months to work it out. He felt his hat. He took it off and put it back on. He phoned Lorna at his place. No answer. Where was she? There was nowhere for her to go in Algren. And she had said she’d be staying a couple of days. “Damn Damn damn,” said Hosea, and began to wonder if he was supposed to know anything.

Where was Lorna, anyway? He decided to go home and find out. As he was getting into his car, Combine Jo walked by and looked hard at him, as if she had seen that hat somewhere before, but where?

“La dee dah, Mr. Mayor with the fancy hat,” she said. “Going to a party?”

“No,” said Hosea. “No, I’m not. I’m going home.”

“Ha ha,” said Combine Jo. “I’m kidding, Hose, it’s a nice hat, suits you. You should wear it on July first if buddy boy in Ottawa comes to town. You know, you look like … Oscar Wilde. Hey, didja hear my kid, Max, is coming home? Pretty good, eh?”

“Is it?” said Hosea.

And Combine Jo said, “Well, I think it is.”

“Yes, well … good,” said Hosea. He knew that Max had left town when Knute was pregnant with his child. So many cowboys, thought Hosea. He also knew all about Combine Jo and her craziness and the cause of it and it was no wonder Max flew the coop. He wondered if Knute and Summer Feelin’ knew Max was coming back. Then again, maybe he wasn’t coming back. Maybe Combine Jo was just talking. But then again, maybe it was true. “Oh, Jo?” he called out to her as she meandered down the sidewalk.

“Yes, m’dear?” she yelled without looking over her shoulder.

“Is he coming back for good? Like, uh, to live here?” he said.

“That’s how it’s lookin’, sweetie. That’s how the odds are stackin’ up,” she said, and she saluted the old black dog as she passed the Wagon Wheel Café.

“Three babies and Max,” whispered Hosea to himself as he drove the two blocks back home. Three babies and Max. But Leander’s gone, he thought and glanced at himself and his hat in the rearview mirror. Four more residents of Algren, minus one, equals three. And no potentially dead or dying at the moment either, thought Hosea. He drummed his fingers on top of the steering wheel and told himself not to worry, not to worry. He parked the car in the garage and went into his house through the kitchen door. He hoped Lorna was there, in bed where he had left her. He would put his cold hands on her warm thighs and she would say—

“Hosea! You’re too early!” screeched Lorna. She had flour all over her face and hair and the kitchen smelled wonderful.

“Oops,” said Hosea. “I am?”

“Yes, you are, and where did you get that hat? You know, it actually looks good on you! But what the hell are you doing home so early?” She’d said urr-lee. Hosea stopped for a brief second to reflect on that question. What the hell was he doing home so early? She said it as though it was their home, not just his. Home. She said it like she lived there, too. What with the flour on her face and everything, and barefoot! She could have said, What are you doing back so early? Or just, You’re early! Three babies and Max and no potentially dead other than Leander and now Lorna’s hinting at his home being hers, too, which would mean three babies, Max, and Lorna, as new residents of Algren, which would be next to impossible to level off before July first, the day the Prime Minister, his father, the man his mother had said, on her deathbed, was his father, had promised to come and see him — well, see Algren. All of Algren. Well, he had promised to see Canada’s smallest town and Hosea hoped that would be Algren. But. Grrr.

“I’m home early because … I love you. And what are you doing?”

“I’m baking, Hose, what does it look like?” Lorna was dragging one finger down a page of a recipe book and moving her lips.

“What are you baking?” asked Hosea.

“I’m baking cinnamon buns, Hosea. The smell of cinnamon buns, for a guy, is an aphrodisiac more powerful than all the perfumes on the market, did you know that?”

Oh, Lorna, thought Hosea. I don’t need an aphrodisiac with you. Just the mention of your name and I melt. I … melt.

“No, I didn’t know that,” said Hosea. “Well, good. That should help.”

Lorna turned around and put one hand on her hip and the other held the recipe book with her middle finger stuck in at the right place.

“What do you mean that will help, Hosea?” she said. “Help with what?”

“With us?” he said, knowing, just knowing it was all wrong.

“What do we need help with, exactly?” asked Lorna.

“Um … I don’t know. I mean, with nothing. We’re fine. Right?”

“What are you trying to say, I don’t make you hot anymore? You need a fucking cinnamon bun to get turned on?”

“No! You said it. I didn’t say that. You said cinnamon buns were more of an aphro—”

“I know what the fuck I said, okay, Hosea?”

“Okay. Let’s go back to it then. Say it again. Please? Please?”

“God, you’re hopeless, Hosea. Okay, did you know that cinnamon buns are a more powerful aphrodisiac than all the perfumes in the world?” Lorna spoke in a bored singsong voice and moved her head back and forth as if she were reciting something. Hosea was ready now.

“To hell with all the perfumes and all the cinnamon buns in the world, baby,” he said. “I don’t need any aphrodisiac but you!”

Lorna was laughing now with her hands on her hips and saying, “Yeah, yeah. Not gonna happen. My timer’s going off in about four minutes.”

Knute and Summer Feelin’ were sitting on the bed and talking.

S.F. was leaning against the wall with her feet sticking out over the edge of the bed and Knute was sitting on the edge of the bed with her feet on the floor and her hands stretched out on her thighs. Summer Feelin’ lifted each of Knute’s fingers painfully high, while she talked, and let them drop. From the pinkie on Knute’s left hand to the pinkie on her right and back again.

“Is Joey a girl or a boy?” she asked. Joey was the neighbour’s yappy dog. Knute hated that dog but Summer Feelin’ thought he was cute.

“A boy,” said Knute.

“What if he’s not?” S.F. asked.

“Then he’s a girl.”

S.F. stared at Knute, gravely, for a few seconds.

“Do you know what I’m gonna use this stuff for when it gets goopy like nail polish?” She pointed to a container of old liquid blush Dory had given her.

“Uh …” Knute said, pretending to rack her brain. “Nail polish?”

“Right, Mom, how’d you know?” said S.F., climbing onto Knute’s lap. Knute could feel S.F. starting to quake inside. Soon her head would be back and her arms would be flapping. What’s so exciting? Knute wondered. Joey? Nail polish?

“Is he coming back just to see me?” S.F. asked. She shook. Knute knew who S.F. meant. She’d been wondering the same thing. No, she thought to herself, he’s run out of money and probably has some type of venereal disease that requires antibiotics and that’s why he’s coming back.

“Yes, my darling,” she said and wrapped her arms around S.F. “You’re the main reason he’s coming back.”

“I knew it,” said S.F. Knute fell over like a tree and her head hit Summer Feelin’s pillow. She couldn’t stop it from happening any longer. She closed her eyes and remembered Max. His hair, his smile, the way he talked, the way he smoked, the way he became maudlin when he drank too much wine, how he hardly ever took anything seriously, the passionate promises he made, how he took care of Combine Jo, how he hardly ever lost his temper, his hands, his stupid jokes, his laugh, his voice, his letters that stopped coming.

“Mom, Mom, don’t sleep.”

“I’m not sleeping, S.F.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m resting.”

“Don’t rest.”

“Summer Feelin’,” Knute said. “Do you think it’s kind of selfish of Max just to come and go whenever he pleases? Do you wonder why he hasn’t come to see you at all and you’re already four years old?”

“I dunno,” S.F. said. She shrugged.

Knute sat up and S.F. pulled her off the bed. It was time to make another heart-smart low-fat, low-sodium, low-cholesterol, low-excitement meal, probably of chicken breasts and rice.

“Oh, Knutie?” Dory called from some cubbyhole she was painting in another room.

Oh no, thought Knute. Another morbid anecdote. “Yeah?”

“Did you hear that old Mr. Leander Hamm died?”

“The guy with the hat?” Knute called out.

“The guy with the hat. Yes. But he was very old. It’s a blessing, really.”

“Well then!” Knute yelled. “Bless us each and every one and pass the whiskey.”

“I just thought you might be interested!” said Dory. “For Pete’s sake!”

“Hey, Mom!” Knute yelled. “Why don’t you crawl out of that hole and come and hang out in the kitchen with us while I make supper.”

“I’ll be right there,” Dory yelled back. “Put the coffee on!”

“Will do,” said Knute, chasing S.F. into the kitchen with wild eyes and singing into the back of her neck, quietly, “He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s given up his bed, he’s said all that he’s said, away his life has sped, his body’s left his head, give us his daily bread,” and Summer Feelin’ had to laugh in spite of herself. Thank God, thought Knute.

Lorna was on her way home. Everything had gone quite well, thought Hosea, very well really, except for the end when she had said, “Oh, Hosea, you know I think about living with you, having a nice easy life together, you know, just … being together.”

Nice? Easy? Could life be that way, Hosea thought, nice and easy?

Could it? And the two of them together? Obviously she meant in Algren. How could the mayor of the smallest town up and move to the big city? Well, he couldn’t, thought Hosea. And after she’d said what she’d said, Hosea had pawed his chest a few times, and said, “Oh you.” “Oh you?” Lorna had said. “Oh you? That’s all you can say, Hosea? Oh you?” But he hadn’t meant it that way. He hadn’t meant it to sound like Oh you, you’re such a silly kid. But oh you, oh you, oh YOU, my Lorna, my love. Hosea understood how Lorna might have misunderstood. He’d mumbled it into his tugging hand and looked down when he’d said it and had wanted to carry her back to his car, to his house, their house, to their bed, to bring the exercise bike out into the open and have Lorna’s sexy, lively colourful stuff all over the place, instead of sad things like Euphemia’s tablecloths and ancient jars of Dippity-Do, and forget about his stupid plan and live in honesty, the two of them, day to day, with July first coming and going like just another hot summer memory and not a looming deadline.

God knows how long it would be before Lorna came for another visit, or called to invite him over there, which was always exciting to think about but when he actually got there, to the city, to her apartment, to the cafés and bars and theatres and universities and health food stores and bookstores, he always felt like an idiot, like a big goofy farmboy on a school field trip, riding a big orange bus that said Algren Municipality Elementary School, and Lorna saying “Hi, hi there, how are you” to people he had never met, and introducing him and should he stick out his hand, and is this rough-looking guy hugging Lorna because he’s what they call New Age, or … Or the time he had driven to the city for that Emmylou Harris concert and his car had started on fire at a red light. He remembered running into a little grocery store and asking to use the telephone and the guy said, “No, no, sorry no.” Then, when he got back to his burning car, some kids in the neighbourhood had pelted him with hard, wet snowballs, laughing and yelling at him, “Let it burn! Let it burn!” No, he much preferred to have Lorna in his little house in Algren, baking cinnamon buns, just the two of them. And then, oh stupid me, he thought, that’s just what Lorna had said she wanted, too, and he’d said, “Oh you,” which she decided he meant as Oh you, that’s a crazy romantic notion that really has no place in our lives, when he’d meant the opposite, and wanted the very same thing, but how could he tell her Algren didn’t have room for her? She would have to be counted and he didn’t have enough dying people to level it off. How could someone tell somebody else something like that? Could Lorna wait until after July first? Hosea shook his head slowly. She would have to, oh please.

Hosea had tried to get her attention but the bus just drove away under a sky the colour of glue and Lorna stared straight ahead. Hosea picked up a piece of hard snow and chucked it at her window and smiled and waved, but she had looked at him with one of those withering looks, a look that said, Chucking hard pieces of snow against my section of bus window will not thaw my frozen heart.

Hosea walked over to the chunk of snow, the one he had chucked at Lorna’s window, and looked at it. The snow around it was dusty from the exhaust fumes of the bus. Hosea gently kicked the chunk of snow towards the sidewalk. He walked up to it and kicked it again, a little harder, to get over the ridge of snow that lined the sidewalk. Up and over, there it went. Hosea continued kicking the chunk of snow towards home. It was getting smaller and smaller. He hoped he could get it home before it disappeared. Gentle kicks, but long distances. Scoop it from underneath with the top of your foot. That was the trick. He shouldn’t be doing this, he thought. What if somebody saw him, the mayor of Algren, kicking a piece of snow down the sidewalk? Well, it wasn’t far to his house, and besides he’d done it as a boy, with Tom. They’d pick their chunks, inspecting them closely to make sure they were pretty much exactly the same size and weight, and then home they’d go. When they got home, if their chunks of snow hadn’t disappeared or been kicked so far they got lost, they’d play hockey with one of them until it did disappear and then, for a big laugh, they’d continue to play with it. It wasn’t there but they’d play with it anyway, taking slapshots, scoring goals, having it dropped by imaginary referees at centre ice, skating like crazy down the ice to catch the rebound off their sticks. Often, they would argue about goals, the puck being offside, illegal penalty shots, all that stuff, and they’d have huge hockey fights, throwing their woollen mittens down on the ground and trying to pull each other’s jackets off over their heads.

One day Euphemia came out of the house with an empty whipping cream carton. “Here, you boys,” she’d said. “Why don’t you use this?” And she had put it down in the snow and stomped on it once for all she was worth and then picked the flattish thing up and tossed it over to them. They’d used it for a while, and Euphemia stood washing dishes looking out at them in the back lane and smiling, and then they’d gone to the front of the house, to the street, where Euphemia wasn’t as sure to watch them, and went back to their imaginary puck.

It was Sunday. Algren was dead. Hosea slowly made his way home. As he walked past the back of the Wagon Wheel Café, Mrs. Cherniski, the owner of the café, poked her head out of the kitchen and said, “Hey, Hosea!” Hosea’s head snapped up like a fish on a line, but not before he made a mental note of where his chunk of ice had stopped.

“Hello, Mrs. Cherniski, how goes the battle?” said Hosea.

“So that is you, I was wondering,” said Mrs. Cherniski, “with that hat and everything. Looks like old Leander gave you his hat before he passed on. Nice of him. But I’d have it cleaned, if I was you.”

“Yes, I should, I suppose,” said Hosea, thinking that all its filth and wear was what he loved about it.

“Well,” said Mrs. Cherniski, “I’ll tell you something. If you don’t get rid of that damn black dog out there, the one hanging around the front of my shop, I’ll shoot the damn thing myself, not a word of a lie.”

“Oh no,” said Hosea, “don’t do that. I’ll find out who owns that dog and make sure they keep him on a line from now on.”

“Well good, you better,” said Mrs. Cherniski. “Last night I had thirty people in my store, you know the Whryahha clan up for the son’s wedding, a private booking. I was serving roast beef and lobster bisque and damned if that dog isn’t sitting outside right there on the sidewalk, his rear end twitching in the wind. Then, dammit, he’s hunkering down in front of all the Whryahha’s in their Sunday best, and I see he’s having a shit right there on the path.”

Hosea adjusted his hat and glanced at his chunk of ice. He shook his head in mock alarm for Mrs. Cherniski’s sake and said, “Hmmmph, that’s not very good.”

“No it isn’t,” said Mrs. Cherniski. “A tableful of those Whryahhas just up and left, they couldn’t finish their meals and they weren’t about to pay for them, having to eat while a mangy mutt craps away right there in front of them. I damn well lost close to two hundred dollars last night, not to mention my reputation. Thank God I’m the only café in town, but Jesus, Hosea, you have to do something about that dog.”

“You’re absolutely right, Mrs. Cherniski. I’ll see to it pronto. In the meantime, you might want to try shooing it away, maybe a little kick.”

“A little kick, my ass,” muttered Mrs. Cherniski. “I’ll plug the goddamn thing right between the—” but she was back inside. Slam went the back door of her café in Hosea’s face.

Adjusting his hat, he went over to his ice chunk and gave it another kick towards home. He looked up at the water tower and wondered what colour to paint it when and if he ever found the money for paint. Bright red would be nice, maybe with a huge decal of a white horse that would wind itself around the tower’s entire circular top. He looked at the boarded-up feed mill and thought of turning it into a type of make-work project for the youth of Algren during the summer months. Perhaps they could turn it into a junior summer stock theatre for tourists passing through, on their way west to Vancouver, or east to Toronto. A quaint prairie play, maybe Lawrence Hamm could donate an old thresher that they could paint and put in the front of the theatre as a symbolic monument to a bucolic past. Now Hosea’s mind began to spin.

He passed a couple of kids walking down the street. Their jackets were open and they were wearing rubber boots. “Hello there,” he said, “beautiful spring day, isn’t it?” The kids smiled and said, “Hi.” They knew who he was but they didn’t respond to his comment about the beautiful day. As a rule, thought Hosea, and he must remember this in the future, kids do not respond to comments about the weather. He stole a glance over his shoulder, making sure the kids weren’t looking back at him, and then quickly retrieved his chunk of ice from the gutter of the road. He had overkicked. Suddenly Hosea wondered to himself what Euphemia had done all day when he was away in school.

“Penny for your thoughts,” she’d say to him when he came home from school, and he’d smile and make something up and she’d give him a nickel or a dime but he never asked her what she was thinking about.

One day Hosea came home early because he had an earache, and he found Euphemia doing a handstand on a kitchen chair, gripping the nubby edge of it with her fingers and bicycling her legs around and around up in the air above her head. When she noticed him staring at her, she slowly brought her legs down to the floor and put the chair back beside the table. Then she’d laughed. “You know how it is, Hosea,” she’d said. No, he didn’t. He had not been amused. He was uncomfortable and alarmed. Why was his mother doing handstands on the kitchen chair? Had she lost her mind? Was she planning to run away and join the circus? Was she a freak? A Buddhist?

He had not been too impressed with that display of athleticism, yet later that evening he tried to do the same thing and could not. Therefore, he surmised at the time, it wasn’t something someone could just do on command, and so she must spend her days practising this sort of thing. This is what she must do while I’m in school, he’d concluded. His question answered. But why?

You know how it is, Hosea, she’d said. Now, as Hosea walked along kicking his piece of snow, he understood. Handstands on kitchen chairs, chunks of ice we can’t let disappear until we’re home. That’s how it is at a certain age. We’re forced to create a challenge for ourselves and meet it. It doesn’t matter what it is.

Actually, Euphemia didn’t have as hard a time living in Algren as might have been expected. Nobody in the Funk family had told anyone about Euphemia being Hosea’s real mother, not even Minty with her big, flapping, eleven-year-old mouth. Even if one of her little brothers had paid attention to the whole brouhaha the night the truth was revealed and then, innocently, mentioned to one of their friends’ mothers, “You know what, my sister Phemie is Hosie’s real mom,” the friend’s mother would have said sweetly, “that’s right, dear, she is, of course she is, now run along and play.”

Euphemia’s father had made arrangements for Euphemia to live in the house on First Street rent free. The owner of the house, in exchange, was given a few acres of land by Euphemia’s father. Euphemia’s father farmed the land but anything reaped from those acres was sold and the money given to the owner of the house.

Just about everybody in Algren, except Leander Hamm — but he didn’t really give it much thought — was under the impression that Euphemia had taken it upon herself to raise this child, Hosea. She was an unmarried so-called mother of a mystery boy. She had committed no sin, of course, because the boy wasn’t hers biologically, they thought. The people of Algren were moved by her generosity and her devotion to the boy. It was a simple story with a familiar heroine, one of their own. A mysterious man on a horse gives Euphemia Funk a newborn baby when she’s outside using the biffy, and Euphemia, a trooper from the start, accepts her lot, smiles at her fate, and raises the boy. Not only does she raise the boy, she raises him to be the mayor of Algren and the man responsible for its claim to fame, a fame that overshadows that unfortunate cockroach story laid out in the encyclopedia, a fame that makes the Prime Minister and the entire nation take note, a fame that comes with being the smallest town in the country.

But at the beginning, when Hosea was a little boy, the townspeople had no idea he would become their mayor. All they knew was that Euphemia Funk, a girl with so much going for her, had sacrificed it all to raise a child alone. And, furthermore, she didn’t seem to mind.

The local churches brought her meals two or three times a week, the wealthier folks in town brought her their ironing and had her do their Christmas baking and sew their curtains and babysit their kids when they went to the city for a night out. Euphemia was almost always paid extravagantly for these jobs and was always promised more work in the future. Euphemia’s neighbours would shovel her walk and trim her hedges and clean her eavestrough and mow her lawn in the summertime. Tom’s mom gave Hosea all of Tom’s old clothes and some new ones, and baked Hosea’s favourite meal, Pork Diablo, whenever he stayed for supper.

At first, when Euphemia’s parents and brothers and sisters would come to visit, her father would stay outside in his truck, picking his teeth, taking apart some tool or another, or having a nap. He would set Euphemia and Hosea up with a house to live in and drive by at night from time to time just to see what he could see, but he would not go inside and pretend nothing had happened. He missed Hosea more than he thought he would, and a very small and non-verbal part of him admired Euphemia for her spunk and her amazing lie that wasn’t really a lie. But he would not set foot in that house. After all, he could make a statement, too. Let Euphemia’s mother and Minty and the boys traipse in like they were going to a Sunday school picnic and not the quarters of an unmarried mother and her bastard son, arms full of cookies and sweetmeat pies and strong coffee, table games and crokinole, good cheer and hugs and kisses. He would sit in his truck. Until one day Tom’s mother who lived right across the street came by and poked her head into Mr. Funk’s cab.

“Have you got an aversion to family gatherings, Mr. Funk? Or are you afraid someone will steal your truck if you leave it alone for a minute? You know, I could have my boy Thomas watch it for you, ha ha ha. Like New York City. You know, where you pay a little boy from the ghetto a nickel to make sure nobody nicks your automobile, or strips the hubcaps—”

“I was just going in,” Mr. Funk growled. “Thank-you for your consideration.”

From that day forward, Mr. Funk dutifully entered Euphemia’s house along with his wife and the kids and set himself up in the dining room as the king of crokinole. He taught the kids, including Hosea and Tom, the combination shot, the straight-to-the-gonads shot, the right-between-the-eyes shot, and the triple lutz. It was the perfect appointment for him. He could avoid conversation and, at the same time, could release his frustration and self-righteous indignation each and every time he curled his middle finger to his thumb and let fire another crokinole rock.

Euphemia and Minty and Mrs. Funk drank coffee in the kitchen and talked and laughed and the words “oh well,” “one more cup,” “what’s the rush” were always punctuated with the vicious crack of a crokinole piece from the next room.

Well, thought Hosea as he walked along kicking his piece of ice, she must have done more than handstands on kitchen chairs. He was just about home now and Lorna’s face came pushing and shoving into his thoughts and the picture of Euphemia upside down churning her long thin legs in the air was gone. Hello, Lorna, I’m sorry, Hosea said to the image of her face in his mind. His piece of ice had made it and just before he went into his house he gave it one last kick up and over his little fence into his neighbour’s yard.

“Hey, Hosea, didja hear?” He whirled around to face his other neighbour, Jeannie, who had appeared on her front steps from out of nowhere.

“What’s that, Jeannie?”

“Veronica Epp,” she said. “She’s had her triplets.”

“Oh?” said Hosea.

“That’s right, three,” said Jeannie. “And they’re all okay. All boys. The last one had to be delivered C-section, you know, but he’s okay, too. Can you imagine giving birth vaginally to not one but two babies, and then on top of all that having to be cut open to have the third?” Jeannie shook her head and stared at the ground.

“No. No, I can’t,” said Hosea.

“Who could?” muttered Jeannie, still staring at the ground and shaking her head. Hosea was about to say Well, can’t be easy or something like that and go inside but Jeannie wasn’t finished. “They were going to rush her to the city, but, you know, they didn’t. No time.”

“Ah,” said Hosea. “Well.”

“So Veronica says seeing as how she went to so much work to have these three babies, she should at least be able to name one of them. Makes sense to me, right, but you know Gord her husband always does the naming, he’s that kind of a guy. And he likes names like Ed and Chuck and Dirk and Todd, you know, names that sound like farts. So Gord says, Well, maybe one of them. I heard all this from Rita, you know Rita from the labour pool, she works with Dory, Tom’s wife?”

“Hmmmm,” said Hosea.

“So he says, Well, maybe one of them, right? And she says, Then again, maybe I should name them all, seeing as I’m the one who says their names the most, like all day every day and I like to say names I like, if I’m going to say them over and over again, she says to Gord, right, according to Rita. And Gord says, No way, you can name one, the one with the slow start because he’ll probably turn out to be a mama’s boy, anyway. Okay, so this makes Veronica really mad, right, and she says What do you mean by that? And he says Well, you know, kids with lung problems, wheezing and clinging and skinny, the slow starter had some lung problems, the doctor says. But that’s all taken care of, she says, and she’s really mad, right, and tells Gord to leave the hospital.”

“Right,” said Hosea.

“In the meantime, she names all three of the boys, fills out the forms for vital stats and gives them to the nurse to mail to the city and get this, Hosea, their names are … are you ready?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Hosea.

“Their names are, now let’s see if I remember, their names are Finbar, you know after that saint of lost souls or whatever he is, Callemachus, after I don’t know who, somebody Greek, and Indigo. Like the colour, you know, of jeans?”

Hosea was quiet for a moment. Jeannie was staring at him with her mouth open in one of those frozen poses of suspended laughter and shock where the one suspended waits for the other to twig and then they both collapse in hysterics. Hosea didn’t understand this type of gesture, however, and said, “Um, is there more?” His hand moved to his chest and he managed to tug at his jacket with his Thinsulate gloves.

“No, Hosea, that’s it. I thought it was funny. You know, Gord will freak when he hears their names, of course he’ll probably illegally rename them or something or refuse to call them by name at all, but Rita told me—”

“Wait,” said Hosea. “It is, you know? Now that I think of it, it’s very funny. Very funny.” Hosea tried to laugh. “Ih, ih. Boy, thanks for telling me, Jeannie, that’s rich, Finbar, Callesomething, and, uh … well, good-bye.”

“Say,” said Jeannie, “hold on, where’d you get that hat? Isn’t that whatsisname’s, the—”

Hosea let the door slam behind him.

Hosea hung up his jacket and laid his gloves and Leander’s old hat on the bench in the hallway. He heard the fridge heave and shudder. The kitchen lights flickered for a second while the fridge sucked every available bit of energy in the house. Hosea looked inside his fridge. Half an onion, dry and curled at the edges, a tub of expired sour cream, and the leftovers of the last meal he had shared with Lorna. There’s something wrong with my fridge, he thought. All this energy for a rotting onion and love’s leftovers. The phone rang. Lorna, thought Hosea. He picked up the phone and said hello.

“Jeannie here,” said Jeannie. “One more thing. Apparently the Epps aren’t thrilled with Dr. François. They say Veronica should have been transferred to the city and they’re just lucky all three boys survived. So, are you there?”

“Yes,” said Hosea.

“So anyway, Rita told me they might sue and Dr. François is getting riled by the whole thing, because the point is, of course, that the boys are all okay. He says even if he had transferred her, the problems she was having would have occurred in the city, too, and the procedure would have been exactly the same. So … anyway.”

“Okay, then, thanks,” said Hosea.

“Hey, by the way,” said Jeannie, “when do you find out about Baert’s visit? Is he coming?”

“Yes,” said Hosea, giving his middle finger to the receiver. “Well, maybe. I don’t know at this point. Good-bye.” And he hung up the phone. Well, he thought to himself. Hmmm … if Dr. François is getting riled he just might leave Algren. He’s always hated it here, after all. That would be one less, let’s see, that might work … and Hosea went through the numbers dance in his head. But how could the hospital function without a doctor? Well maybe it could, just until after the Prime Minister’s visit, thought Hosea. Obviously he had work to do. Tomorrow he would have to drive out to Johnny Dranger’s farm and tell him he was outside the town limits, again. He would call Lorna and beg her to forgive him for his stupid remarks and maybe he could even explain what it was he was trying to do. That he had a good reason for not asking her to move in with him, and that very soon, in the fall, after the Prime Minister’s visit, it would all be different. And he’d have to ask Knute to do something about that black dog. And check into renovating that old feed mill, and painting the water tower. And he’d have to ask her if she’d heard from Max. Fair enough. He could relax. He poured himself a glass of wine and put on his new Emmylou Harris tape. He sat down on the couch and looked around his house. He looked at his tapered fingers and then touched the faint scar tissue on his right palm, but this time he didn’t feel a thing. No tingling, no pain. He rubbed it harder and felt a small ping. Good. Hosea raised his glass and thought, To the babies, Indigo and whatever their names are. And he had a sip of the wine. He remembered his exercise bike, hidden behind the furnace. What was it that mattered most in a man’s life? He just didn’t know. And he didn’t know how to find out and he didn’t know if ever he did find out he would know what it was he was finding out. Hosea had another sip of wine from his glass. Now his hand was on his forehead. Okay, Hosea, he thought, time to pull your wagons in a circle, time to cut bait, time to, whatever, something, for Christ’s sake, the tears were streaming down his face now as Emmylou’s voice, pure and high, settled in around him, sweet as mother’s milk.