35

WHEN FISHER GETS to the supermarket checkout, the cashier gives him a look that runs from his head to his boots and back again, then won’t look at him any more, as though the sight of him bothers her. He watches her ring up his purchases and stuff them into bags, is ready with a couple of bills to shove at her, then snatches up his shopping and heads for the washroom. In the mirror he stares at himself: his parka’s torn, his jeans stained with blood, his eyes watery as undercooked eggs, and on the top of his head sits the ski mask, all bunched up. A thug’s hat. He has to admit he looks like a man who’s been up to no good.

He shuts himself into a stall and unzips his jeans. His fingers are raw from being frozen, and his longjohns peel painfully off the wound on his thigh. The cut’s smaller than he imagined, but still oozing. Blood’s run all the way down to his socks and crusted in his leg hair. He wipes what he can with toilet paper, then fumbles with the ointment he’s bought. He tries to close the wound with butterfly stitches, only they stick to his fingers, and the plastic bag hanging from his wrist, and by the time he gets them on there isn’t much stick left to them.

The effort’s left him sweating. He lets himself out of the cubicle and yanks off the ski mask. One short toss and it’s in the trash. He holds onto the washbasin as though he might be sick. The wound’s stinging deep down into his muscle, and it’s riling up all the other pains he’s suffered. At least he bought some ibuprofen, and he pops open the bottle and shakes four into his hand. To tide him over, he thinks. Until he’s driven home and can take some of the Vicodin Grisby left him. The thought of those little white pills hangs golden and warm in his mind.

The faucet’s low, but he holds his head under it and rubs in soap from the dispenser. The swelling on his skull feels overripe, like it’s about to burst. An old guy with a pinched face pushes open the door. He gives Fisher a quick glance and looks away, says, “We’ve all been there,” and shuts himself into a stall.

Fisher dries his hair as best he can on a paper towel, and his face too, then he digs into the plastic bag. He pulls the tag off the hat he’s just bought, a green woolen thing with The Last Frontier embroidered across the front. He’s bought gloves too, and he slips them on as he walks out into the lobby where the ceiling heaters shed their red glow, and the air’s hot and cold like milk heated too quickly.

The afternoon’s barely over and already it feels like it’s been night forever. His hair’s still damp. Even with the hat on, it chills his head the moment he steps outside. But that’s better than the ski mask with its stink of greasy skin and cigarette smoke and besides, the cold makes him hurry, the plastic bag swinging against his hip.

Already his hands are aching, despite his new gloves. They haven’t forgotten the awful cold of the outhouse, won’t forget it for months, for years, perhaps. He thinks about calling Jan and telling her Bree’s OK, that she’s gone down to the States, to Colorado, of all places. Soon, he thinks. First he’s going to drive home and let Pax out, he’s going to put the pizza he’s just bought in the oven, then he’s going to take a Vicodin and watch an old movie, John Wayne maybe, then he’s going to sleep. Tomorrow? Well, Reggie’s not going to swallow a story about being kidnapped, and another guy taking a crowbar to the cab. He’ll have to come up with something else: a fare who went nuts and knocked him out—he has the lump on his head to prove it—but hell, how’s he going to explain not calling the cops? Fuck Reggie, then. He’ll buy some new clothes and get a haircut and apply to City Cabs, and if they don’t want him, hell, he’ll try Northstar Cabs, or Eagle Cabs. And this time things won’t get fucked up.

He’s bought duct tape and he tries to tape up the smashed mirror. It’s too cold for the glue to stick—he should’ve known that—and besides, he hasn’t got the patience, not now. He tosses the duct tape onto the floor and steers the cab out onto Airport Road with the mirror still banging against the door. It’s the end of the workday and traffic’s heavy, or as heavy as it ever gets in a town this small. In places ice fog hangs like cotton wadding, in others the air’s so clear that the lights of the town seem polished and hopeful. Fisher follows along behind a red Subaru, watches the warm gleam of its taillights all the way through town and out along the highway to his turn-off where he slows, gently, drives across the earth bridge that bends across the old dredge pit, then he guns the cab up the hill. Here the trees close in like a tunnel leading him home. The cab lurches over ruts, squeals in the hollow at the corner and there, behind the trees, is his porch light, reeling him in.

He pulls up and turns off the engine. Silence washes over him. He sits there for long enough to take a few breaths and let them out slowly. This time yesterday he pulled up here and Grisby was beside him. Everything looked the same. The porch light shining out, the snow banked up along the path to the trailer, the timbers of his unfinished house behind like a broken box. Grisby. Have the militia guys killed him, he wonders? Did they lock him up to freeze to death too? Or did he get away? But if he got away, where’s he now? An urge tugs at him: go find Grisby. But he’s too worn out, too beaten down, to even think of doing anything.

It takes an effort to open the door, to pick up his bag of groceries through his thick new gloves, to root through the snow for the end of the electrical cord and plug in the cab. It’s stiff and he has to force the metal prongs into the plastic. Then he walks the few yards to his trailer and up the steps with his key in his hand.

He doesn’t have a chance to use it, though. The door opens and there, with a gun held casually like this is all a joke, stands Mr Egg Face.