Bob Venton’s head is bobbing and his green Bing Crosby hat goes down down like wet wax on a candle. This little alcove at the side of the Tim Hortons is the wing of a stage. Bob has recently tried to lay claim to the name “Jazz in the Park” so that he could sell it to Meaford. He did run the Jazz in the Park in Wasaga Beach, a blaring festival of John Williams movie soundtracks that scared the walleye from the edges of Nancy Island, but he doesn’t own the title. Wasaga Beach is looking for him. He has spent the winter running a Cole Porter review in the basement of The River Inn. Tickets were twenty-five dollars a pop, and shows ran nightly through the winter months. He expected to get twenty to thirty people a night so he could bankroll his musical about the Collingwood shipyards. He has already written the opening number about shipbuilders spending their money on hookers. Unfortunately, only thirteen people showed up to see Baby, It’s Cole Outside. Thirteen people. All winter. Now Bob Venton’s on the run. It’s hard to say exactly from what. Unpaid musicians or yet another municipal grift involving parks and rec. He stands here, hat dropping to hand and plans to enter the Tim Hortons in order to borrow money so he can buy a coffee. People’ll think he left his wallet somewhere. Money just out of reach. A nickel on a bird’s head or a dime popped up off a tin can. Bobby’s eyes, so close together that they make each other nervous, speaks through a little rubber beak. He speaks in a kind of scat.
“Hey, big daddies. Man, that’s a day to be big.”
Bobby rubs his ear, as if to erase what he’s just said. Barry Little looks up, his big owl face reddening.
“Hi, Bobby. What can I do for you?”
“Ah. Be-dap. Be doo. Man, I just need some … to boot me some geets.”
Barry sighs and draws coffee from the edge of his cup.
“Mash me a fin, pops?”
“Not readin’ ya, Sammy Davis.”
Other patrons are trying to hide behind steam.
Bobby snaps his fingers. “Sorry, daddy-o. My jib is on a slide.”
Barry blinks froggishly.
“Sorry, mack. My jive is off-time and—”
“Shut up, Bobby …”
“Hey, pops. Hey, daddy. Hey—”
“Bobby.”
“But …”
“Bobby.”
Bobby pauses, pointing his index fingers out and down. His expression is very sad. “Could ya see me for a cup of Joe, Barry?”
Barry shifts his heavy left hip up as he forages through a pocket. Bobby rocks his fingers back and forth, shooting imaginary guns off into the floor.
“Fly me to the moon. Hey.”
When Barry holds out the coins, Bobby sweeps his hat out under his hand. Barry is embarrassed by this and looks up at Bobby. Bobby’s hair has formed into a greasy fin under the hat. His eyes so very close together. Barry releases the coins into the hat. Bobby winks and clicks his tongue.
Bobby stands behind a thin mechanic in dirty overalls. Bobby is almost too nervous to wait for his coffee. He begins tapping his feet, shuffling his heels.
“When the shark bites. Yeah. With his teeth, man.”
The mechanic turns slowly and fixes a look on Bobby, stopping him suddenly. Never at a complete loss, Bobby extends his arm and pops his hat into the air toward his head. A quarter hits him in the eye and he doubles over. Some dimes and nickels tinkle to the floor as Bobby holds his eye. He stomps on the coins to stop their spinning.
“Bobby?”
Bobby has one hand over his eye. It’s the manager of Tim Hortons. A tight-skinned man with hard black hair.
“Did you hurt yourself there?”
“No, man. No.”
“Okay. Look, you’re gonna have to leave.”
Bobby stops for a moment, as if to give him the chance to take that back.
“You can’t be … uh … borrowing money here.”
Bobby smiles and puts his hat on. His eye is blood red. A final quarter slips from the inner brim and sticks to the sweat on his forehead.
“Okay. I’m sorry, man. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Bobby. No, I’m sorry … look, it’s just I can’t …”
“I’ll just go.”
Bobby’s eyes wobble like a compass to find each patron, then settle on an empty table.
The sun is powerful outside and Bobby has to cover his injured eye. Before he steps off the curb, the manager comes out with a coffee, nods, says nothing and slips back in.
To get to Meaford from Stayner you have to take Highway 26 through downtown Collingwood and along the base of Blue Mountain to Thornbury and finally, the tiny, pretty harbour town of Meaford pops up. Bobby’s hitchhiking inland, to Duntroon, then back out to Collingwood.
The fields between Duntroon and Stayner lie like drapery across a foot, curling and swooping in fine detail, lazily folded backwards or cinched by a stand of crabapple trees. This is the valley Bobby walks in. Crows as big as cows pull at meat near the road’s edge. Poles lift the lines up, up and onto Duntroon’s distant brown puff. It is rural paperwork country. Quarries pull the white from the grey ground and long tree farms sit in paragraghs. Bobby walks into his valley like a man in search of a blue bird. Whistling, his one good eye scanning the pale escarpment, Bobby realizes at the pit of the valley that he hadn’t planned on walking up the other side. He throws out his thumb.
A pickup truck descends from behind, from where Duntroon tips over onto the mountain, and it races down pulling a hell-wig of dust. The driver sees in the distance poor Bobby Venton, his big feet pigeon stepping, his hands thrust in pockets as if to keep luck from flying out of them. His crooner’s hat, with its crushed felt and tiny red feather, mark him as a man who walks at the bottom of a giant screen, a movie bearing down on him, swinging like a dream into the valley.
In the back of the pickup are four boys from Ravenna. They are heading to Stayner to raid the co-op for axes. The killers have been shooting their guns too liberally and have run out of rounds. The job will have to be finished with farm implements.
Bobby turns at the sound of the truck. He watches as it crosses the median. Bobby steps back onto the shoulder, but not fast enough. The truck clips his hip, sending him twirling in the air like a baton, up and over the fence, headfirst into an immature field of corn.
The driver looks in his rearview. The road is empty and his boys are quiet.
Bobby lies still on his side, bent at the waist like a safety pin. His lower spine and hip are shattered, but he is still breathing.
We look to heaven and send up our thanks for this small life spared. A life barely worth living in a body that, though lying still, is heading violently in two directions at once. He will come to, then die.