THE DAWN PATROL

CHAPTER 7 part 3

Mom phones me the next morning and tells me Uncle Jack’s coming in on the afternoon flight. She just finished talking to him and says he’s coming in at three o’clock. She wants to know if I can pick him up.

“I’d just feel better if you were there to meet him. He’s older now. And you know it’s been a while since he’s been here. There’s the roadwork and there’s all that construction going on around there.”

I tell her I’ll take care of it.

“Thank you, Daniel. I’d feel better knowing you went there to get him.”

“I still have to call Russ, though.”

“I didn’t mean he couldn’t go,” she starts to say.

“No, Mom,” I cut her off before she gets carried away trying to apologize for something that hasn’t really happened. I mean, I didn’t raise to the bait. Instead I say, “My car was stolen. Last night. I’m supposed to pick up a loaner. He offered to drive me.”

“Your car was stolen?”

“Outside the hospital.”

“Someone stole your car?”

“I phoned the cops. But really, there’s not much they can do. They told me to call back, uhm — I don’t know — a day or two, He said not to expect too much. Cars like mine are targeted. Expensive high-end sports cars — ”

“That’s what your father said when you bought it — ”

“Yeah. I remember. But anyway, cars like mine are targets, and it’s probably in a chop shop right now, or on its way to Calgary.”

I stop talking, thinking she might want to add something else, but she doesn’t say anything. I speak into the silence, wondering if she’s even listening to me.

“Russ is coming by so we can go pick up a loaner.”

“You already said that. Are you starting to forget things, as well?” she asks. “That’s how it starts off, you know, with little things like that.”

“I’m fine,” I say.

“As long as you don’t forget to pick up Uncle Jack.”

“I won’t.”

After I hang up, I make another phone call, thinking maybe I can either  salvage or even re-arrange my day. I’m going through a personal crisis here, I want to scream into the phone at Ashleigh, when I realize I’m choking up as I try to explain what’s going on. There’s a big production meeting set for later in the afternoon, she says, and I tell her I’ll have to bail. I’m sure it won’t be a problem, she says, because everyone knows what’s happening with the project — it’s just that I’ve always been a hands-on kind of guy.

*

Russell drives up, honks, and sits waiting in the car for me to come out the door. I shake my head as I grab my coat. I could hear his car hallway down the street — a cloud of blue smoke trailing behind like a limpid shadow — and stand shivering under the trees as Russell leans across to push the door open.

Black cars look better in the shade, I sing to myself, and decide they look better in the daylight — all flat black and primered, like Russel’s. It pulses out a cloud of blue smoke while it sits at the driveway coughing like a winded drunk.

“You look like shit,” I say to Russell as I climb in. He’s wearing wrinkled grey slacks and compensates with a clean white shirt. He’s got a scruffy old pair of tennis shoes and he’s not wearing any socks. He hasn’t shaven, his eyes are red, and his hair’s not combed. He suits the car, or maybe some TV show in the 80’s.

“Do I? I wish I felt half as good as that,” he says, and settles back into the seat, closing his eyes briefly. He looks over at me and grins. “Got a smoke?”

We drive out to the airport in silence. I guess both of us are feeling the effects of the rum we finished off last night. Rather than spending the night on the couch, I called a cab. I need the comfort of my own bed. We listen to a cassette. A demo. His demo. He looks at me and smiles that smile he’s always had since we were kids.

*

The rental company is a bust, telling me they’re not able to get the car I want for another three days. I can drive off the lot with a Honda today, the clerk smiles, but I’ll have to wait for the Solstice. I tell her I’ll wait.

It’s a bright, sunny day, the mountains a brisk, cobalt blue dusted with the first good snowfall of the season. There’s a chill in the air that seems to scratch at me through the open window like a dull, rusty razor, and feeling about as sharp.

Uncle Jack is five years older than Dad, but he looks a dozen years younger. His hair started falling out years ago, so he opted to keep his head bald, shaving it every other day for years after that; now he complains that he only has to shave it once a week. He’s a large man, not fat and slow moving like so many other older men we’ve all seen — like Uncle Freddy was toward the end of his life — but a tall, wide shouldered man, built solid. He has a large handlebar moustache he curls up, as though he’s Porthos sitting at the table with a mug of wine. He walks with a cane though — a thick, sleek, black thing with a gnarled knob instead of a handle. He says a man his age has to protect himself with something. It resembles a club.

He’s wearing a plain white shirt with no tie or undershirt, and his blazer looks as if it hasn’t been worn in years. He has a suit slung over his shoulder — for just in case, he says — and a small carry-on bag. He waits for us to kiss him on the cheek as if we’re still his little nephews from thirty years ago, then gives the overnight bag to me, and the suit to Russell.

“I need a drink,” he says, as we try explaining things to him. I open the door and toss the bag in, taking the suit from Russell and hanging it up carefully.

“I already know what’s going on; I spoke to your mother this morning for two hours,” he says as we get into the car. I get into the back seat.  “We had a good cry over it too, which is why I need a drink,” he says gruffly.

His voice is deep, and rough — hard edged from a lifetime of working outside and barking out orders; or from a lifetime of Jack Daniels and the same Cuban cigars Grandpa used to smoke.

“There’s a bar around the corner from the airport,” Russell says. “The drinks are cheaper there than they are here. And they have girls.”

“I don’t mind looking at pussy, if that’s what you think — black, white, Chink — I don’t care. And just so you know, I’m always looking for a way to save a buck,” he laughs.

“I thought you were supposed to be rich?” Russell says with a grin.

“How do you think I got that way?”

  *

We leave the airport, find the bar, and sit at a small table near the edge of the stage. We order a jug and three glasses, and watch the peelers try to tease Uncle Jack. He laughs, asks them if they think he hasn’t seen a shaved beaver before, and they give up trying to shock him. He ignores them, and begins drifting away, slipping into a discussion about Dad.

“It’d be nice to be able to give it all up someday,” Uncle Jack says. “You get tired after a while. You know you’re getting old when your friends start dropping off.”

It always amazes me to hear older people talk about death and dying the way they do sometimes. They seem so at ease about the whole process, as if they’ve overstayed their welcome and they’re just waiting to check out. Uncle Jack treats life as if it’s as simple as staying at a country club, or a resort — a Club Med for the Undead; he refers to dying as “Checking out,” “Taking the next flight,” or “Catching the bus.” Uncle Freddy was like that near the end, but when Uncle Freddy died he just said, “I’m outta here,” and closed his eyes with one last sigh.

“I remember when my dad died,” Uncle Jack says in a soft voice as he rubs the scar on his chin. His harsh, gravely voice softens even more as he goes on. “I thought I could handle it. I told myself it wasn’t really a surprise after all. I mean, I knew it was coming. Eventually — inevitably — whatever; we all think about it sooner or later. So, I thought I could handle it. But that excuse — that line of reasoning doesn’t work when you know you’ll never see him, and it makes you feel...helpless...and alone. Fragile.

“Even after everything I’d been through in the war — Normandy and Dunkirk, The Blitz, my wife — his dying was different. It felt like, like,” he looks up and stops talking, shaking his head slowly. “I’m sorry boys. I shouldn’t be talking as if your Dad’s already gone.”

“I think we’ve already come to terms with it,” Russell says, looking at me. I nod.

“Accepting it and coming to terms with it is fine,” Uncle Jack says, “but living through it is quite another matter. Come on, let’s go see your mother,” he adds, throwing a handful of money on the table.

“Uncle Jack, I was gonna — ” Russell begins to say.

Uncle Jack stands and finishes his last swallow of beer. “You never have to pay when you’re with me. I didn’t expect you pay when you were kids, so why should you expect to pay now?”

“Because we’re not kids anymore?” I offer.

“Says who?”

“Because you said you like to save a buck?” Russell counters.

“Here, have a cigar,” Uncle Jack says, reaching into his blazer pocket.

“Aren’t you gonna have one?” Russell asks.

“I quit.”

“When?” You’ve been smoking cigars for as long as we’ve known you.”

“Today.”