Chapter 2: Milk and Honey - Asbestos

Late June 1986

Between two loud mouthfuls of cereal, Poulie told me Monsieur Joly the upholsterer had been killed in a car crash the week before. He was just here, this winter, to fix the old couch … He had that big binder of samples, right, Mom? You could choose. There were hundreds!

Poulie excitedly pointed at the obituary in the newspaper, milk on his chin, miming scissors with his fingers. Poulie’s dad said, It’s too bad, but there just isn’t enough work for all the upholsterers in Thetford. Getting a couch done costs a lot. You get what you pay for, sure. But it’ll cost. And now there’s one less. Supply aligning with demand. Off on a lecture now.

Pierre Poulin, better known as Pit, taught Consumer Education at the high school and was my best friend’s dad. I wanted so badly to have him as a teacher, but it was a thousand years away, I counted – fifth grade, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and only then at last eleventh grade. Out of all my friends’ dads, he was the best. Of course I wished he could have been my dad, instead of mine, another Pierre carved from a harder stone. I liked Pit Poulin, with his green-eyed gaze and wine smell and reddish-orange moustache and a tinge of rosacea on his face; above all, I liked when he placed his heavy hand at the base of my skull before letting us run off on some feral adventure. Poulie, with spoon in fist, went on about how Monsieur Joly had some kind of fabric warehouse at the edge of the neigh-bourhood, just before the truck crossing. I gave him a doubtful look before finishing my cereal and polishing off the honeyed milk in the bottom of my bowl.

Mitchelltown being our neighbourhood, I should have been able to place the late Monsieur Joly’s warehouse. It was supposed to be the last building on Black Lake Road before the big highway that takes you to the next town over, with its English name, Black Lake. I don’t know, I don’t think so. You really want to go out there?

Poulie’s mom, Camille, Camille Fugère, wiped his mouth as best she could.

Stay out of trouble today, Charlélie. And to me, Bye, Steve. Cutie pie.

Over breakfast we had charted out the day’s mission: head off in search of tarps to waterproof our new fort in the pine forest. No one would notice a few missing sheets of plastic, not before Monsieur Joly’s warehouse was sold off, if then. We just had to be discreet, not get carried away. Our plan possessed an elegance born of indolence.

We could have gone the shortest way, along the main road or through the vacant lot, and then cut behind Bilodeau’s house. But the best missions are secret missions. From the PoulinFougère home, we pedalled to the end of Coleraine Street, rode around the metal gate onto Dostie Road, a private fibrous gravel road used in fall by hunters on their quads and in summer by teenagers on their way to drink beers by the stream full of cray-fish that we called ‘the creek.’ We wouldn’t have to worry about running into anyone this early in the day. As the road narrowed, the stands of trees on either side grew denser. Sometimes between the trees we caught glimpses of the King-Beaver Mine, where my dad worked, a dazzling white behemoth vying with the sky and towering over the dead lake of pearl-grey water at its foot. Before us, about an hour’s bike ride away, was the sacred site of our wildest delinquencies, the cemetery of the abandoned British Canadian Mine.

But for now, we were still riding down the dirt road, coming up to the spot where we’d cut toward the creek that led to Black Lake Road, just before the turnoff for Rural Road A. It was an eerie landscape, littered with the foundations of houses that had long ago pulled up stakes and moved, an area that for reasons unknown we called the Old Russian Village.

You could hear the rustle of the creek getting closer over the clicking of our BMXs. The stream flowed under Dostie Road through a large and terrifying galvanized-steel tunnel tall enough for us to climb into, meaning tall enough to entertain the sketch -iest dares and bets and stupid games and pointless punishments. On the left, the stream flowed placidly from the BC Mine, a silty, brownish grey. On the right, the hill was steeper and the creek cascaded into the forest, its cleaner, colder water an invitation to cool ourselves down as well. We stashed our bikes in the ferns, let the day and the cold water run its course. The current was clear here, you could see the rocks lining the creek bed, sheltering the sleeping crayfish. Poulie couldn’t get enough of this path, he loved taking it at top speed, yapping away and leaping over the creek, hopping from rock to rock, some slick with moss.

As my friend hooted with joy, I counted my steps, trying to group them into sets of ten, left foot on a rock, right foot on a rock, five times. Come on! Poulie would goad me from twenty yards further down the hillside. Quit counting rocks, let’s go!

After a few minutes, we came to the wrecked car, an old and once-yellow VW Beetle standing nose-down in the water as the creek flowed through its missing doors. We’d long ago stopped wondering how a car could have ended up in the water this far into the forest. Mostly we were content to catch the rainbow trout lazing around between sunken beer bottles snagged by the car’s pedals.

The coolness of the creek under the dense canopy of trees wore off in time. The air grew warmer, talcy. We were nearing the road to the mine. Poulie kept up his galloping pace, while I remained a pusillanimous stick-in-the-mud, true to the form my father loathed, perhaps because he’d cast the mould.

* * *

One year earlier: August 1985

We called the hills dumps, the old-timers said slag heaps or sloughs, and our teachers taught us to say piles. They were mountains of rubble, great mounds of grey powder and finecut gravel, chalky yet remarkably sharp. Anthracite sand with glass seams that stayed perpetually warm. Apparently asbestos sucks up the sun. Its shade of grey changes based on when it last rained. We weren’t allowed to climb those hills – but of course we scaled the heights of every dump we could reach, near or far. You just needed shoes, and pants.

After a serious ride and a patient half-hour climb to the summit of one of the BC Mine dumps, Poulie and I found ourselves at the tire cemetery. It was Charlélie’s first time and mine too, the first summer of our friendship, our cemetery baptism. Here lay tires of every shape and size, even monsters shed by the heavy trucks and machines of the BC Mine armada.

Six of us were there that day, the noonday sun beating down on our skulls and brows. Our leaders, Péloquin and Ouellet, were flanked by our classmates Pépin and Binette. First we sent hurtling a few tires that our small arms could easily hoist, whooping and hollering when they finally dropped on a sparsely treed stretch of muddy ground. Then Péloquin settled on his choice, a fallen mastodon. Let’s roll this one, guys. It’ll be rad!

Laid on its side, the tire was over three feet high – standing, it was close to ten feet, or double the height of most of us. Good thing we had Ouellet, eleven years old and going on six feet. At first it was all we could do to lift it a few inches, the tire beginning its slow slide and just barely raised off the ground before crushing back down and burying our twelve hands beneath its monster studs. We need to wedge it, said Ouellet, against something that’ll lift it. Good idea. Pépin spotted a rocky ledge a few paces away. We pushed our great ship toward it and shoved it up against the ledge, spent from our efforts. Sweat trickled down our heads and the backs of our hands toward bloody knuckles; rocky sand worked its way into shoes, socks, and mouths. On Péloquin’s count of three, we girded our backs and abs, thighs and ankles, wrists and biceps, necks straining and faces grimacing, and little by little the beached tire rose up, over knee-high at first and then belt-level. Gasping for air like the quivering tiny-chested weightlifters we were, we transitioned from a snatch to a shouldering and reformed in a circle around the circumference, Ouellet and Péloquin caught in the middle, Péloquin still giving orders while trying not to dirty his clothes, Binette and Pépin on either side of the two oldest boys, and Poulie and I, the small -est in our classes, on our knees at the base. We were pushing with our shoulders and our heads, and soon we were braying, roaring, swearing like grown-ups. Binette yelled out, Grendizer Screw Crusher Punch Tabarnak, and Poulie cracked up, and Ouellet shouted, Shut up, Binette! Push, Pépin. I had to tap my last reserves of strength, from my hips to the crown of my head, with my scarlet cheeks pressed against this huge slab of warm, dirty rubber we were managing against all odds to stand upright. We were Atlas lifting the earth, Hulk Hogan holding André the Giant at arm’s length. Look on our work, ye mighty: at long last the great tire stood up on end, triumphant, taller and stouter than any man in this town. Our labour had metamorphosed into violent excitement and inchoate rage as we began with an ancient Egyptian slowness to roll the tire toward the slope. We were nothing now but pure burning heat.

* * *

Late June 1986

Imagine if we found a whole box of shower curtains? I voiced this humdrum hope as Charlélie Poulin conjured a decadent opulence, listing off the fabrics he dreamed of finding in the upholsterer’s shed. But seriously, imagine if our fort had cushions. And curtains!

Poulie was stoked. What if it rains? I objected, no cloth would ever dry in the untroubled shade of these pines. But there was no putting back in the bottle our vision of a lair of our own where milk and honey freely flowed. Charlélie leapt from thought to thought like a honeybee, his laughter reaching me from different spots along the creek. It’s not like we’re stealing cushions and quilts, I mean c’mon, I told myself. Poulie wasn’t giving up on his dream of the most sumptuous fort this forest had ever seen, our home for many summers to come. Gesticulating and spouting off and cracking up and yelling, quite clearly still rushing from multiple bowls of sugary cereal in quick succession, he lost his footing and his ankle buckled, and then he was laid out on the ground, hysterical, holding the elbow that had broken his fall. His mahogany-brown hair shone bright against the deep-green forest floor. No failed somersault could keep him down. The birds sang their song, Oh, my sweet Canada, Canada, Canada.

As he slowed his pace, Poulie waxed lyrical about gold-threaded fabrics, bolster throws, and eiderdowns. In our imagi -nations the shed was an isolated temple, like the underground lair of His Highness Ben Kalish Ezab, who had fled the coup d’état of Bab El Ehr in our beloved Tintin: Land of Black Gold. We talked about Abdullah, the bratty child emir, and his pet cheetah, Ayesha, oh how we would have loved one of our own. On and on Poulie went, with images of carpets lining the floor and hanging from the walls. No, he was adamant, the underground lair was in The Red Sea Sharks. I was sure it was another Tintin. We argued it out for the rest of the trip. I refused to admit he was right.

As we came up to the main road, almost at the truck crossing, we fell silent. Every day except Sundays this stretch was dangerous, with heavy traffic and restricted access. Huge yellow trucks would have spotted us and immediately reported our presence. But on that Day of Rest not even a dog barked. Our caravan found safe passage. The air was dry and sclerous. A faraway wheezing of insects drowned out the rustling leaves and rippling stream. At least two dozen trucks were lined up like massive toys. We walked past two metal hangars. A hundred yards further and we’d hit Black Lake Road and then, at last, our destination.

Poulie said to look extra-hard for cameras or special lights. It seemed like maybe, yes. We didn’t know. But we figured it was morning, not night. Cameras and lights were for the night.

Still, though, we knew the area was under surveillance. The truck crossing gate was controlled by a sensor. We’d short-circuited the junction box a few months earlier, to laugh at the truckers unable to cross the road. Impatient men climbed down from the cabs of heavy vehicles, checked out the vandalized box, made calls on their CBs. We could see them scanning the horizon.

But we hadn’t planned our retreat, were around sixty yards from the forest. Had to ditch our BMXs, too incriminating and easily spotted – mine was black with yellow grips and tires, Charlélie’s blue from bars to treads. We ran away, convinced they would see and, worse, recognize us. In class the next day we were still on edge, expecting the call to the principal’s office. We even waited two whole days before going back for our bikes. They were still there – curious shoots had grown over and tied dainty loops around their spokes.

We were there at long last. Monsieur Joly’s warehouse was a letdown, despite my proud surprise at finding it, which forced me to admit that Poulie had been right. I’d never before noticed this unremarkable garage, set back from the road and hidden by trees. It was light grey aluminum, paint peeling off its big front sliding door, and on the left side were a windowless standard-issue door and a white-framed window. In the grass in front, two parallel tracks were worn bald from the wheels of Monsieur Joly’s van. Both doors were of course locked, and the side window was broken – no surprise near the mine, a blast at four o’clock sharp, six days a week fifty weeks a year, will damage all manner of things: the slopes of the pit, sensitive nerves, windowpanes. But this one had likely been broken by a branch. The neighbourhood glazier was Schwein and Sons, my dad said Swine and Sons and called them once a year to change our broken panes.

The thick cardboard taped inside the window frame was coming unstuck, and one folded corner gave a sliver of a view into the small garage. Maybe thieves beat us to it, Poulie murmured, and I grew more nervous at the thought of breaking in through this window. Luckily it was too high to reach. The tops of our heads came up a good eight inches short. I wasn’t about to climb up on Poulie’s shoulders, or boost him on mine. The sun was taking our places in the garage, piercing through the gloom, sepia like the bottom of a shallow lake. We could make out what looked like industrial metal shelving, laden with boxes and big bags. Poulie was ecstatic, his sighs long and yearning, his eyes bright as flashlights.

Behind the building, long tubes of sturdy cardboard lay on the ground, stacked like wood and mostly rotten. But a few rolls sheltered from rain and damp looked to be in good shape. Let’s take a few, whispered Poulie, the woodland ninja. A breeze carried the scents of the forest, and we breathed it in, intoxicated, and then spit it out, groggy from the conifers and the musty coolness of our summer cavern.