IX

Connie Pan and Dink and me.

And Dink’s new camera. A real camera, this time.

Should be a pretty good picnic. Dink has a bag of cheese and tomato sandwiches that his dad made for us. I’m not going to eat any of them in case his dad coughed all over them while he was making them. Connie Pan has egg and mayonnaise and lettuce sandwiches. I’m going to love eating those sandwiches because she made them herself. She also has six huge almond cookies that she bought at the Yangtze Restaurant just up the street from her place. I’ve got macaroni and cheese cold meat sandwiches, some with ketchup on. Some with mustard. Some with mayonnaise. I also have six apples. I guess I eat a lot.

And Dink the Thinker has his new camera that he’s been saving for.

Mr. Fryday gave me today off to research a new sign for his wagons. I think he gave me the day off partly because of what I told him about what I suspected about his wonderful employee, “don’t judge a book by its cover,” Dumper Stubbs. I think Mr. Fryday is partly mad at me for saying stuff about his pal, his buddy, who he sits all night with in the Elmdale Tavern, and who would never do anything like pollute a river just for some extra money! Dumper “who me?” Stubbs!

I think my mouth has got me into trouble again.

First, a day off. Then a couple of days off. Then, every day off!

Maybe Mr. Fryday is starting to fire me.

Anyway, today we’re going to drive straight out Bank Street on our bikes.

Connie Pan’s mother won’t know Connie Pan is with me because there’s a big parade and festival and street sale on in Chinatown today to raise money for some poor people around there. There’ll be lots of costumes and kites and dragons and music. Her parents will be busy all day. She told them she doesn’t want to do all that stuff. She told them she wants to be Canadian, not Chinese.

“They are mad at me,” says Connie Pan. “Once a year, Chinese New Year, is enough,” says Connie Pan. “But I have Chinese cookies,” she says. “Not so Canadian, yet!”

When she laughs I feel like I feel when I imagine Beethoven taking a stroll on the bike path along the Gatineau Parkway.

If you go straight down Bank Street as far as you can go, you get to the United States of America. We’re not going that far today. We’re just going to ride for an hour or two. Just till we get to where the village of Manotick is across the river. Just till we get to the grease rendering place around there.

Where Dumper Stubbs supposedly takes the big full barrel of grease every week. Where he supposedly gives the fifteen to the man and where he supposedly gets a receipt each time which he gives to Mr. Fryday.

Supposedly.

Sure.

There aren’t that many places to stop along Bank Street for a picnic. I guess Connie Pan is wondering why I didn’t pick a better route with more picnic places. I haven’t told her my real reason for this trip. To check out Dumper Stubbs’s story. Dink the Thinker doesn’t care if there aren’t very many nice places to stop for a picnic on Bank Street. He’s too busy looking around at everything to see what might be good to take a picture of with his new camera.

We could stop at Landsdowne Park for a while but Landsdowne Park isn’t really a park, it’s mostly cement and pavement. We could stop at Rideau Canal but maybe it’s too early, we’ve only been driving along on our bikes for about twenty minutes. We could stop at Billings’ Bridge along the Rideau River but there’s too much traffic and the river stinks around here anyway.

We stop for a minute at the corner of Bank Street and Albion Road but not to picnic. There are a whole lot of velvet paintings for sale here, leaning on benches along the road. Dink takes a picture of one velvet painting of Elvis who sort of looks like Jesus the way he’s looking up. Then Dink takes another picture of another velvet painting, this one is of Jesus. Funny thing, he doesn’t look as much like Jesus as Elvis does. We could stop in Blossom Park but Blossom Park is not a park and there are no blossoms. It’s just houses.

About fifteen minutes later, we decide to stop for a small picnic. Connie Pan is hungry and so am I. Dink the Thinker picks the spot for the picnic. It’s a graveyard. The Hope Cemetery.

We lean our bikes against the gatepost and go in a bit between the graves where there’s room to put down our blanket. This is a pretty crowded, full cemetery. There are thousands of dead people in here. Behind the cemetery there’s a junk yard. Full of dead machines and dead cars and dead everything. Dink takes a picture of a grave and then opens up his bag of sandwiches and offers Connie Pan one. But I stick my hand out just ahead of his, offering her one of my sandwiches. I don’t want her to eat one of Dink’s in case you know who coughed nicotine all over it. She could get lung cancer eating one of those sandwiches.

While we’re eating and looking around, we notice that the people in the cars going by on Bank Street are looking at us. I guess it looks weird, a picnic in a graveyard.

If my dead father was here now, with his trombone, I would be the happiest guy in the universe. He would play us a quiet tune, his wrist very loose, his finger and thumb holding the slide so tender, his eyes closed, his neck muscles swelling.

But I’m not the happiest guy in the universe.

I hear somebody saying something to me.

It’s Connie Pan. She wants to go.

I don’t think she’s having a very good time.

Dink shows his instant photos of graves and dead cars to us. He tells us how many years it will take for all this stuff to turn to particles. Then he tells us about the Big Bang Theory of the Universe and how everything is just made of rays shooting down on us from quasars from other galaxies. Then he shows us his photos of Elvis and Jesus. Connie Pan is getting a bit impatient. I should tell her where we’re going but I keep putting it off.

“Is there a maybe better place to perform a picnic?” says Connie Pan.

We take off again on our bikes.

Is this what a Canadian picnic is supposed to be like? Maybe Connie Pan would rather stay Chinese after all. Maybe it’s more fun on Somerset Street today, chasing after the tails of huge paper dragons. And untangling kites.

Maybe Mrs. Pan is right. Maybe Canadians are stupid.

Down the road a half an hour there’s a Hindu Temple. We stop there and put down our blanket. We open up our sandwiches and apples.

“It’s nicer here,” says Connie Pan.

An angry man in a white suit comes out and kicks us off the grass. We can’t stay here. It’s against the rules.

We get on our bikes and take off again. While we’re driving along, Dink hands me a photograph. In the photograph there’s a man in a white suit, pointing, kicking picnickers off his lawn.

Instant replay.

It’s ten o’clock when we get to Rideau Road, near the town of Manotick. Two hours away from Chinatown. I turn left onto Rideau Road at the Swiss Inn and Bottoms Up Club. Connie Pan and Dink follow me but they don’t want to. Should I explain to them that I want to talk to the grease man at the depot here to see if he knows Dumper Stubbs? To see if Dumper Stubbs really comes out here every week with his huge barrel of rancid grease? Or find out if he does something else with it?

It’s too hard to explain. It won’t take long anyway. Just ask the guy. Do you know Dumper Stubbs? That’s all. Only takes a second. I can explain everything after.

It’s hard to breathe on Rideau Road. It’s full of dust and smoke and filth. Cement trucks crashing by knock you off the road. Trucks full of hot asphalt blow burning tar fumes in your face. Big tractor trailers with twenty-two wheels blast their diesel horns at you and knock you off your bike. Fire and smoke blow across from the brickyard. Drilling and blasting rock in the quarry breaks your ears. The stink of chemicals and slime from the ditches makes you feel like barfing.

Connie Pan is mad. “This is not the way to have a picnic!” she shouts. “Where is the picnic place, the picnic park?” Her eyes are full of tears from the poison in the air. All around us is broken pipe, weeds, oil, smoke fumes, steam, gas, sludge, cement, burning rubber, steel fences, fires, broken brick, iron, rust, sulfur, dead machines.

What a perfect place for a picnic!

Now, there’s a new smell! It fills Rideau Road with heavy air. It’s a smell I know. It’s the smell of burning hair, rotten food, dirty rivers, maggots, jars of bacon grease with green mold growing across the top, a dead fat rat with beetles running out. The smell of Dumper Stubbs! We’re here!

The grease depot!

There’s a little shack that’s the office for the grease man. There’s a field full of grease cans and barrels. There’s a truck and a long tractor trailer. There’s a guy getting into the tractor trailer. I’m walking over to the guy. My feet are sinking into the greasy ground, sucking out of my own footprints in the cooking-fat ground. Dink the Thinker and Connie Pan are standing on the road beside their bikes. They think I’m crazy. I’m pulling my feet out of the grease mud, getting closer to the driver of the tractor trailer.

“Do you know Dumper Stubbs?” I yell.

“Who?” yells the guy.

“Dumper Stubbs!” I yell, “he’s got an ugly truck, comes here once a week, drops off grease...”

The diesel engine is roaring like a lost hurricane.

“Can’t hear ya!” the guy yells. “Get in!”

I get in. I look over at Connie Pan and Dink.

Dink is taking a picture of me getting into the truck. Connie Pan is looking at me through the filth like I’m a crazy person.

“I have to talk to this man!” I call to her.

“You want to talk, you have to ride!” screams the guy. “I’m late! I’m rolling!”

I get in.

I try to roll up the window to shut out the noise. One of the mufflers is right outside my window. It’s rattling and shaking like it’s going to explode. My window won’t roll up unless you press the glass with your hand while you wind the crank. I decide I’ll ride a few blocks with this man and then get out and walk back. He’s yelling at me, talking away about Stubbs and a whole lot of stuff. Once the window is up I can hear better.

“...usually pick up a hitchhiker. Better to have some company on the trip. Ya ever drive one of these big jobs? Twenty-two wheels. This is not a bad job. Drivin’ grease around. You know how much grease we’ve got on board? Sixty drums. Sixty forty-five-gallon drums of grease. That’s a lotta deep-fried pogos right, pal! That’s a lotta potatoes frites, you know what I mean? A lotta cholesterol! A lotta heart attacks! HA! HA! Here, ya wanna shift gears. We’re going into the last gear. Watch how I double clutch. Don’t force it. Take it easy. That’s it. Just ease it in. No, no, over more towards you. Now down a bit. That’s it. See! Easy eh?”

We’re barreling along pretty fast. It’s going to be a longer walk back than...I’ll get out at the first stop-light.

“...sure, Stubbs, he’s my buddy. Known him for years. I see him about once a week, out at the grease depot. What a guy! A real nut case! I went to school with him. Tried to set fire to our English teacher one time. Honest to God. Another time, drove his truck right into the Gatineau River. Bet me fifty bucks. Said his truck could float! Drunker’n a boiled owl that night! Still owes me the fifty. While we’re swimmin’ to shore he’s yelling, ‘I didn’t bet, I didn’t bet!’ What a lunatic!

“Sweetgrass eh? What kind of a name’s that? Mine’s Delaney, Rene Delaney. They all call me Rainy Day. Rainy Day Delaney. I don’t know why. ‘Cause I like driving in the rain, I think. Spud, is that your nickname? Probably because of the potatoes, right? Got your driver’s license yet? Not yet? Going to school? You what? You got hoofed out of school? HA! HA! What a coincidence. So did I! So did Stubbs as a matter of fact! I got kicked out for jumping off the balcony during an assembly! I didn’t really jump off. See, I made a rope out of a bunch of guys’ jackets. I was lowering myself down from the balcony so I could sit with my girlfriend. Teachers wouldn’t let us sit together. One of the sleeves ripped. I fell right down, I landed right on top of the teacher who was the Head of the Math Department! Broke his arm! I think that’s why they kicked me out. Because of the Head of the Math Department’s arm! Glad you’re coming with me. I usually try to get a hitchhiker. Gets boring all by myself. Montreal’s a good run, though. Only a little over two hours depending on the traffic...”

Montreal!

We’re thundering out the highway at the speed of light. Doesn’t look like there’s anywhere he’ll have to stop. I’ve got to tell him now that I don’t want to go that far. All I wanted to know was if Dumper Stubbs came out to the grease depot once a week. And now I know. He does. Mr. Fryday was right. Dumper Stubbs is innocent.

What’s Rainy Day Delaney going to think when I tell him I want to get out? I could say that I’m going to visit my uncle along the highway here. I’ll say, “This is where I get off. I’m going to my uncle’s house.” Trouble is, there’s no houses along Highway 417. O.K. I’ll pretend he lives behind the trees over there. That’s what I’ll say; “I get off here. There’s my uncle’s house, you can’t see it, it’s behind those trees over there. He’s a hermit.”

Rainy Day Delaney is starting to tell all about how his buddy Stubbs got himself kicked out of school for blowing up the science lab and I’m getting ready to tell him I have to get out here in the middle of nowhere.

But now we can’t hear anything except a terrible rattling and clanking and banging and knocking. Blue smoke is all around us. The truck is howling and screaming while Rainy Day is cursing and wrestling with the steering wheel and the clutch and the gear shift.

Now we are stopped in a dirty cloud. The truck has died.

I’m glad.

Now I don’t have to tell that stupid lie about my uncle the hermit.

I can hitchhike back from here.

Who knows, maybe I’ll even be able to catch up with Connie Pan and Dink.

Rainy Day Delaney is on his cellular phone.

He’s standing in front of his smoking engine. I’m sitting on the running board deciding what to do. I can hear him on the phone. He’s got somebody on the other end. It must be a mechanic. Yes, he’ll be here as soon as he can. As a matter of fact, he’s not that far. He’ll be here in twenty minutes. Then I hear the name. Stubbs! Rainy Day is talking to Dumper Stubbs! He’ll be here in a few minutes!

I quickly tell Rainy Day that I’ve decided to go back to Ottawa and thanks for the ride. Before he gets a chance to say anything I cross the median and get over to the other side of the highway to hitchhike back.

For about fifteen minutes the cars are blowing by so fast I’m thinking I’ll never get out of here before Dumper gets here. I don’t know why but I just don’t want to see him. And I don’t want to be standing here when Rainy Day tells him I was asking questions about him. And I don’t want to be offered a ride back to the city with him.

A new Chrysler New Yorker with wire wheels stops to pick me up. As I’m running up to get in, a truck pulls up across the highway behind Rainy Day’s truck. I can see writing on the side: STUBBS. But it’s not Dumper’s truck.

I watch the man get out. I hear his name called by Rainy Day. They are glad to see each other. They are good old friends. They slap each other on the back. They walk around to study the broken truck.

There’s only one problem.

One thing not right.

The man who got out of the truck which says STUBBS on the side is a short skinny guy with red hair.

Rainy Day Delaney’s friend who he sees once a week at the grease depot is some other guy named Stubbs.

It’s not Dumper!