VII

I hear my mom get up and then phone somebody and then go back to bed. I know who she’s phoning. She’s phoning work.

I make her a cup of instant coffee and take it into her bedroom. She’s not feeling good this morning so she phoned in sick. She was out late last night at the Village Inn.

We have a little chat about what we always have a chat about. My father.

“There’s a lot of your father in you, John,” she is saying. “He was a stubborn, outspoken man. It caused him a lot of trouble. And it could cause you trouble. Remember that.”

This little chat makes me feel very empty inside. We’re not talking the way we used to. We’re talking about him all the time. All the time comparing me to him. And all bad stuff. She’s looking at me but I don’t feel it.

And another thing.

I feel very sneaky and guilty.

Because she doesn’t know they kicked me out of school.

I never told her.

Things just aren’t the same anymore.

I used to tell her everything.

Now, I don’t tell her anything.

Well, too bad.

She doesn’t tell me anything either.

So, I guess you could say we’re even.

I go down the back stairs and get my bike out of the shed. It’s early and I’m going to go over to Mr. Fryday’s house and help him get the wagon ready. He lives over on Bayswater Avenue. I also want to talk to him about a couple of things.

I speed up Rochester Street, turn left at Somerset, sail down Somerset on over the bridge over the City Center and turn left on Bayswater. Bayswater is a nice street with trees and houses with verandas and yards. And cats in the windows.

I turn into Mr. Fryday’s laneway and lean my bike on the end of his long veranda with the pillars. On the veranda is Mrs. Fryday, sitting in her white chair at a little white table having her breakfast. Mrs. Fryday is an invalid and Mr. Fryday has to take care of her. He comes out the screen door and puts an icing sugar covered donut on a plate on her little table. The donut is cut up in small pieces so she can eat it. She has a glass of iced tea with a straw in.

Mr. Fryday and I go into the yard and start to get the truck ready. While I’m spraying the windows with vinegar and water and cleaning them I discuss with Mr. Fryday the first thing I want to talk to him about. It’s about the cardboard sign he uses in the truck. One side of the sign says “Sorry, We’re Closed” and the other side says “Come In, We’re Open!” I want Mr. Fryday to change the sign. First of all, what’s the use of saying “Sorry, We’re Closed.” When a chipwagon is closed, it’s driving along a street or it’s parked in somebody’s yard.

And the other side of the sign is useless, too. “Come In, We’re Open!” You can’t come in a chipwagon. You stay outside a chipwagon.

Mr. Fryday and I discuss changing, getting a better sign, having no sign at all. Maybe you don’t need a sign on a chipwagon.

While I help fill the salt shakers and vinegar bottles and wipe off the counters with baking soda, Mr. Fryday goes and helps Mrs. Fryday back in the house to wait for the person who comes over to take care of her for the rest of the day.

While I’m cleaning the Beethoven CDs with special fluid to keep the grease from spoiling the music, Mr. Fryday gets in the truck and starts the motor. While he’s carefully backing the wagon out of his laneway, I get my bike and wait at the curb on Bayswater Avenue. When Mr. Fryday’s truck is backed onto the street and ready to go, I pull my bike alongside and hold onto his outside mirror. We take off slowly. I always wish Mr. Fryday would drive a little faster but I guess he never will. He’s the most careful driver in the world.

And he always drives with his parking lights on.

While I hang on to the driver’s side and while the cars blow their horns and rip around us squealing their tires, we swing up over onto Wellington Street to get into the City Center where the Potato Processing Plant is, almost under the bridge. Mr. Fryday buys all his potatoes here.

“It’s very commendable that you take such an interest in the business, Spud Sweetgrass,” Mr. Fryday is saying to me, talking loud so that I can hear him over the squealing of the tires and the honking of the horns of the impatient cars behind us.

“I’m going to think about what you said about the signs. I have the identical sign in all ten of my wagons, so if I decide to make a change, it will be an important and expensive decision. I want you to do a little research for me, if you can. Find me a better idea for a sign, one that’s not too expensive and I’ll consider it. Perhaps there will even be a little bonus or a commission in it for you. I agree with you. It is silly to have a sign on a chipwagon, saying ‘Come In, We’re Open!’ when you don’t mean it. Why didn’t I notice that! Well done, Spud. You’ll go far in the chip business one day!”

We pull up in front of the Potato Processing Plant almost under the Somerset Street Bridge. Even outside here, we can hear the potatoes thundering.

We go in.

Mr. Fryday is talking to the manager in his little glass office, talking about old potatoes and new potatoes, about animal grease and vegetable oil, about restaurants and chipwagons, about hiring people, people who are good workers, people who aren’t.

I can see Mr. Fryday pointing over to me with his thumb. Mr. Fryday likes me. He thinks I’m a good worker, a smart person. A co-operative person. A bit mouthy maybe, at times, but a good lad. And he liked my father a lot.

Mr. Fryday does not know that I got hoofed out of school this May just before exams. I never told him. I guess I’m ashamed of it. Or, maybe it’s none of his business.

I go around the Potato Processing Plant, following the potatoes around. They start up above on a platform in bags. The guy up there cuts open a bag and the potatoes go thundering and bouncing down the chute and then fall on a moving ramp that moves uphill so that all the mud and dirt and stones get knocked off the potatoes while they try their best to get to the top.

After they tumble and work and ride to the top they fall over the edge, just like kids in my class going out the door of Mr. Boyle’s room. They fall into a big metal drum, booming and echoing like Beethoven. Here the big ones go into one peeler and the small ones into another peeler. They roll around between rollers in there, rollers that look like they are covered with coarse sandpaper. Now they come back out white and peeled and two guys pick up the potatoes and gouge them out with little ice cream scoops and let the little potato balls fall down another ramp. The little potato balls are for fancy restaurants.

Then most of the potatoes go through the chipper. The chipper sounds like the machine the tree cutters on the street use to grind up the branches and twigs and leaves of the tree they just cut. Then the chips come falling and tumbling out and splash into a white foamy bubble tub bath of chemicals to keep them from turning black like an apple does if you bite into it and then leave it on the table all morning.

Then they get drained on another ramp and then they go into a bagger and get bagged and weighed.

I go back to the little office and wait for Mr. Fryday to finish his business with the manager. Today’s Ottawa Citizen is sitting there on the bench. I see the words Westboro Beach on the front page. I can’t help it, but right away, as soon as I see those two words, Westboro Beach, a picture of Connie Pan pops onto the screen of my mind. The picture is of Connie Pan, up to her chin in water.

But wait! What does the paper say about Westboro Beach? I read a few more words. Westboro Beach closed. Pollution. Water unsafe. Authorities. Further notice. And other words like that. My mind is running up and down like the potatoes trying to get up the ramp. Try to get up. Fall back down. Crawl up again. Roll back down. This time. This time!

I’m back out holding on to the outside mirror, riding slowly along Corso Italia, turning left to go carefully up Somerset Street hill, stopping and carefully parking in front of the Mekong Grocery.

Like I always do, I remind Mr. Fryday to switch off his parking lights. He always forgets.

I turn on my cookers and set out the containers. I put up my display and turn the cardboard sign over to the side that says “Come In, We’re Open!”

I get a bag of fresh-cut potatoes that we picked up from the Processing Plant and set it in the corner on the counter. I put out the “no cholesterol” empty vegetable oil can where the customers can see it. I put on Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, very low. There won’t be any customers for maybe an hour yet. Lots of time. Maybe I’ll get Dink to get me an Ottawa Citizen when he comes along. Maybe read the news about Westboro Beach again. How they closed it because of pollution. The picture of Connie Pan pops onto the screen of my mind again. I see both Connie Pan and me in the picture this time. The camera moves in closer. Closer to Connie Pan’s mouth. Closer to my nose. Closer to the minute when I tasted the water.

Mr. Fryday is getting ready to leave on his rounds. He’s very happy, humming and trying out his Fryday song under his breath, polishing his rings while he’s humming.

“Have a successful Fry-day, Spud Sweetgrass,” says Mr. Fryday, “sell those chips like hot cakes!”

“Mr. Fryday,” I say, “there’s another thing I wanted to say to you today. Another thing I thought you might want to discuss besides the ‘Come In, We’re Open!’ sign.”

“Discuss away, Spud Sweetgrass! Always glad to learn from and listen to an industrious and bright representative of our younger generation!”

“The other day I was swimming at Westboro Beach and I could smell and even taste chip grease in the water,” I say.

Mr. Fryday’s face changes.

“Do you think,” I say, “that somebody would go down there to the beach and throw worn-out grease in the river?”

Mr. Fryday’s face is all of a sudden different than his real face.

How can a person have a new face all of a sudden? Have one face for ever since you met him and then, in one or two seconds, get a brand new face? A darker face. A worried, scared, mad face. Mr. Fryday’s fingers go to his cheek. His rings sparkle as they come across his mouth.