Jordan boarded the bus at six p.m., making his way to the back where, as fate would have it, he met the vampire, who was sitting in the opposite row of seats.
He smiled sympathetically at Jordan and said, “I hope you made the other guy look worse, at least?”
Jordan turned his head. “Excuse me?”
“Your face. It looks like you were in a fight.” Jordan thought the man might be in his late thirties, certainly no older than forty. He was darkhaired and clean-shaven, but his face had a thick five o’clock shadow. “Was it over a girl?”
“Yeah, it was a bad fight,” Jordan said. “And it was over a girl. And the other guy did look worse. A lot worse.”
“My name’s Richard,” the man said, extending his hand across the aisle. “Richard Weal. My friends call me Rich.”
“Hi, I’m Jordan.” He shook Weal’s hand warily. He wasn’t used to talking to strangers, but since the ride was going to be a long one, he figured it was better to be friendly than not, if only to ensure a peaceful trip.
Weal smiled. “Where’re you headed?”
“Lake Hepburn,” Jordan said. “Just before Sault Ste. Marie.” He shrugged off his jacket and put it on the seat next to him. Feeling obligated, he asked. “How about you? Going far?”
“A town called Parr’s Landing,” Weal said. “It’s been a long ride for me. I’ve been riding this bus since Ottawa. That’s five hours already. I can’t feel where my back ends and this seat begins.”
“Never heard of it,” Jordan said. He shrugged. “I mean Parr’s Landing, not Ottawa. You have family there, in Parr’s Landing?”
“It’s near Marathon.” Weal smiled again, revealing a mouthful of yellowish teeth that looked like they hadn’t been brushed in days. “On Lake Superior. In the bush. In the middle of nowhere, truth to be told.” Weal laughed, an abrupt high giggling screech of hilarity entirely out of sync with the rest of his delivery. “I used to live there a long time ago. I’m an archaeologist. I’m doing a PhD at the University of Ottawa on the history of the Jesuit settlements in northern Ontario during the seventeenth century. Or rather, I was. I took a bit of a sabbatical, for health reasons. But I’m going back to complete some of my research.” He patted his hockey bag. Jordan saw that his nails were filthy, the cuticles crusted with what looked like dried mustard and ketchup.
“So . . . you got family there?” Jordan repeated, more out of politeness than anything else. He’d not finished high school by the time he escaped his family tumult in Lake Hepburn and he had no idea what a PhD was. He was having a hard time following the conversation. He wondered if he’d taken more of a hit than he’d thought when he landed on the floor. His head was beginning to pulse in earnest. “I mean, in Parr’s Landing.”
Weal smiled at that. “Blood family.” He covered his mouth with his hands and giggled again. “The best kind.”
“Sorry, what?”
“Never mind.” Weal held up a thick sheaf of papers bound with a heavy clip. “I’ve been re-reading the manuscript of this book I’m writing. I’ve been editing it. It’s going to come true soon.”
“It’s going to what?”
Weal leaned close enough to Jordan’s face for Jordan to smell his breath, which was quite foul. “I said, it’s going to be published soon.” His eyes narrowed. “Why, what did you think I said? Are you hard of hearing?”
Jordan pulled back, nauseated by the odour of Weal’s breath. “Sorry,” he said. “My head hurts pretty bad. You know, the fight.” He decided then to bring the conversation to a close. He wouldn’t have felt like talking, even to someone less unkempt and, frankly, weird. He wanted to sleep. He felt like shit and he wondered if maybe Don hadn’t actually managed to break his nose after all. He looked up the aisle, but all the free seats were in the back, where he already was. He couldn’t easily move without calling attention to his desire to distance himself from Weal and he had no desire to antagonize him, or otherwise engage his attention beyond what he still hoped was just small talk. “I think I’m going to close my eyes, Rich.” He yawned in an obvious way he hoped didn’t look too fake. “I’ll talk to you in a bit, OK? You can tell me more about your book.”
“Oh, of course, young sir,” Weal replied. He had removed the clip and was turning the pages. His nose was pressed so close it was almost touching the paper. “I do apologize for rambling a bit. It’s been a long day. I’m a bit knackered myself.” He smiled. “That said, I’ve got my book. And my tools.” He patted the hockey bag again. “Would you like me to wake you up when the driver stops in Sudbury for dinner? I imagine we’ll all be quite famished by then.”
“Sure,” Jordan lied. “Please do.” He leaned his bruised face against the cool glass of the bus window and closed his eyes. He promised himself that when the bus stopped in Sudbury, he was going to change his seat as unobtrusively as possible.
There was a crest on the first page the freak had waved at me , Jordan thought aimlessly. And it said University of Toronto. Not University of Ottawa. And then he chastised himself. Stupid thing of you to notice. Like you’d ever wind up in either of those places, you big dummy. What do you know about any of that shit?
His face hurt like hell. Then he remembered the painkillers he’d stolen from Don’s bathroom. He reached into his knapsack and took out two of the pills. He swallowed them dry, trying in vain to work up a mouthful of spit to ease their passage down his throat. He gagged at the acrid dry taste. He remembered the whiskey in his bag and took a long pull straight from the bottle. He shivered, his eyes watering. His face really hurt. He took another pill out of the bottle, considered it for a moment. He knew nothing at all about drugs, or what might constitute an overdose, and was flying blind. What the hell, he thought, and popped it in his mouth. He took another swig of the whiskey, and another. The amber liquid seared his throat, the heat travelling down through his body to his empty stomach, radiating outward towards his extremities, leaving him light-headed and warm.
The pills had an immediate effect. A slide show of mental images flickered across the screen of his mind—his mother, his father, Fleur, their lovemaking, and, of course, Richard Weal. Jordan’s lips and jaw felt numb, and he was utterly relaxed.
Outside, the city was consumed by the night and vanished entirely, leaving an eternity of highway stretching north as far as he could see. Only distant neon stars, rendered opalescent by the rain, broke the blackness. Lulled by the motion of the bus beneath him, Jordan yielded to the barbiturate admixture of painkillers and whiskey coursing through his system. He closed his eyes again, and slept.