In his frugal kitchen, Scott MacDonald buried the remains of a frozen dinner and tried not to think about work. He tried not to dwell on the giant who had invaded his psyche and would, it seemed, be impossible to ignore.
Scott flipped through the manual of the Sony CD player he had just bought. He liked the machine. Easy to operate, it held six discs at a time. It was only the second stereo he had owned. He hadn’t bought his first until he was twenty-five. He was thirty before he had attended a rock concert, thirty-five before he’d bought an album by the Stones. Scott MacDonald may have been the only man his age who had never played air guitar or mouthed the words to “I’m Eighteen.”
At forty-two, he was a baby boomer. A member of the rock ’n’ roll generation.
Woodstock.
Moody Blues.
Procol Harum.
Bill Clinton hunkered over a sax on Arsenio Hall, wearing Blues Brothers shades like a 1960s service badge, reaching out to millions of balding, pot-bellied flower children who had almost forgotten he was theirs.
Power to the people, Mr. President.
Rock on.
It all left Scott unmoved, as distant as the Fug.
Had the 1960s really touched down in Hope, Arkansas, with enough force to change the course of America, but missed Dartmouth, Nova Scotia? Or had Scott MacDonald, the Kayak King, been out for a paddle?
Earlier that day, before Turmoil Davies had affected his equilibrium, Scott had bought Eric Clapton’s Unplugged and then picked up a Rolling Stone with the icon on the cover. Inside, Clapton talked about “Layla,” heroin, booze, and the death of his four-year-old son. To Scott, it was like reading about Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald or watching Lena Wertmüller movies. If Clapton was the Guitar God, who were his disciples? What was his spiritual legacy?
The only old song implanted in Scott’s brain was one that his former training partner, Taylor, used to sing about a guy named Patches. No, there was another one about Timothy and cannibals, and Taylor liked it because his name was Tim. Tim Taylor was a thick, power-driven beast who thundered down the lake in his canoe like he was caught in the path of a forest fire, reaching, driving, lurching with every stroke, fighting for his life. He wore an Afro that bobbed like an impermeable mass of cotton candy, never melting in the rain. A demented road warrior made from salvaged parts, he had teeth divided by a thumb-sized space, one finger bent at forty-five degrees, one ear mangled by a dog.
Scott had a picture of him grinning at the camera one year at Nationals. Under Taylor’s arm was the head of René Cartier, a kayak paddler from Montreal who wore wooden clogs and drove a TR6. Cartier seemed stunned by the headlock, Taylor delighted.
Scott plugged in a laptop with failing power. He felt like he was running through shallow water, fighting the undertow of ennui. Fatigued, he stared in a mirror for signs of cancer. He had deep hazel eyes, a straight nose, and a mouth that hung loose, expectant like a volleyball player waiting for the spike. When Scott smiled, one tooth hid behind the other. He’d grown a moustache once, but it looked ridiculous, as though he’d soon start smoking a pipe or wearing a cravat.
Scott thought about Turmoil, who fit his theme of a boxing resurgence. He felt good, he decided, that Ownie had come to him first, especially since he had been off the street for so long. After the interview, Scott had, in a show of faith, found a Standard photographer who had taken Turmoil to the studio and shot him in front of a sky-blue backdrop.
Scott stared at the empty wall, ignoring his ringing phone.
Last week, his mother had called and told him with a curious blend of horror and exhilaration that she had seen Tim Taylor driving a bingo bus. “He pulled out in front of a Chevette and nearly caused a horrible crash. I was so upset when I saw it was him and the bus was full of seniors.”
Taylor only had one speed: full-out. While others glided to the wharf for a flawless side-on landing, Taylor charged until the last spectacular second, breaking the impact with one leg lifted like a dog. Never bothering with a warm-up, he left the wharf pumped. “Give me fifty metres,” he would shout, trying to erase the advantage that a kayak naturally had. It was never enough, not with Scott in the sleek, winged kayak and Taylor fighting the wind in a rudderless C-boat that rode through the water on the point of a V. Taylor called kayaks “women’s boats”; Scott called him Joe Freak. One side of Taylor’s torso was larger than the other, pumped from the uneven motion of paddling C-1, steering the diamond-shaped boat with his paddle, teetering on one knee, straining his hamstring until it snapped like an old rubber band.
After practice, while Taylor’s knee was still white and dented as cottage cheese, they would stop at a corner store to refuel. Without fail, Scott bought a dark Vachon cake, the Joe Louis, while Taylor asked for the “the half lune moon.” Scott tried to tell him that lune was French for “moon” and he didn’t need to say it, but Taylor wouldn’t listen. He liked the sound of “half lune moon.”
Scott’s apartment was sparsely furnished, the walls bare.
On a side table, Scott had a square photo of himself as a paddler, drenched and boyish after a downpour. His hair was blond, his shoulders endless. Wearing a red Canada singlet, he was holding a wooden Liminat paddle upright like the iconic pitchfork in American Gothic. If he looked closely, he could see veins that resembled earthworms extending from his bicep all the way to his hand, clutching a medal. In the picture, he had skin that you expected to smell like Scandinavian furniture and feel like the back of a horse, powerful, yet vulnerable and exposed.
He lay on the couch with the stereo playing, an archaeologist combing the cultural ruins, picking through the broken pottery and cave drawings of the 1960s. He’d picked up Rolling Stone but couldn’t focus on a college fashion layout. Was this the counterculture?
In the winter, they used to run and lift heavy weights. They did chin-ups and circuit training, abs. In the spring, at the hint of thaw, they dragged an aluminum pleasure canoe onto the ice and hacked out a path with an axe. Taylor couldn’t swim, so they had a deal in the event that Taylor tipped: if he wore a lifejacket on one ankle, Scott would try to reach him before he drowned. If he didn’t . . . well . . . fuck it.
When you’re eighteen, there are no consequences, just endless possibilities and dreams you have to dream. On the water at five-thirty, back before supper, sleep racing by ten. If he tried, he could see himself in sweats and a Maple Leafs toque hauling open the boat bay door, flooding his Cave of Wonders with early-morning light, filling his soul with longing and dread. He could smell the mouldy towels and feel the cold cement floor stinging his feet.
He had to reach up to touch it: twenty-seven pounds of cracker-thin wood, as finely crafted as a violin, as smooth as a dolphin. His magic carpet, his ride to the stars.
Scott could see mist rising from the lake in a mass resurrection as he lowered her into the water, fixed the footboard with pins, placed a towel on the seat, heightening the excitement, prolonging the work. He took off his shoes, and when he eased into the cockpit, gently, like a mother laying down an infant, he shivered from the touch of wood.
He took a tentative stroke on the right, then the left, pushing off into another world of pain, hope, and nirvana. Swish. Swish . . . swish . . . swish . . . . Set the rhythm from the start.