Love for a Deaf Rebel - Derrick King (top 100 novels .txt) 📗

septic permit in Squamish, the building permit in Vancouver, and the electrical permit in Burnaby—the departments handling Bowen Island were 150 km apart.

Eugénie and I attended divorce court. The judge said he wished other couples were as cooperative. We had lunch together as singles, ten years after we first met.

Luisa called me two weeks later, hysterical. “Fran’s come up with the money to call off the foreclosure! Our work is for nothing! The Thaxter property is jinxed!”

The house was sold to Pearl and me on 27 February 1985; Thaxter had been bluffing. We were thrilled. Life was going our way! We would find happiness. This was high adventure, and we were on a roll.

Frank drafted a contract and gave two unsigned copies to me. The contract specified completion in two months. “Why is the contract with Astra Trading Company Limited and with a Vancouver post office box address?”

“For taxes, to get the benefits we discussed. That’s my mailing address because I don’t want the Bowen Island postmistress reading my mail in her spare time.”

We signed Frank’s contract. Frank ordered materials and began work a few days later. Pearl traded her Buick Skyhawk in on a new blue Nissan pickup truck. I advertised my condominium for rent.

A semi-trailer load of drywall and materials arrived. Frank, his son, and his son’s girlfriend started work. They wired and plumbed; erected windows, siding, vapor barrier, and insulation; installed and buried the septic tank and connected it to the septic field; and cut, nailed, and plastered drywall. The power company connected electricity to the temporary pole, and the telephone company hung a line from the road. A mason built a chimney.

Pearl and I worked at our jobs downtown, restless and distracted, and visited Bowen Island every weekend.

“We are unmarried, so if either of us dies, the other will have a mess. We need wills. Do you know a signing lawyer?”

“There is one deaf lawyer in Vancouver. I don’t want to use him because deafies gossip. I know a hearie lawyer who fingerspells, Quinn.”

I was surprised that Pearl wouldn’t support a deaf lawyer, because she had spoken about becoming an investment analyst for the deaf community. We had Quinn make our wills.

We bought work clothes, garden tools, a stepladder, kerosene lanterns, and a used refrigerator and woodstove. We hauled everything in our new truck. I connected the old electric range and the refrigerator to the temporary power. Frank asked us not to be in the house while they were working, so while they worked on the house, we cleared the property and barn to get the barn ready to rent.

We ate our meals at the Snuggler Inn, warming ourselves by the fireplace. Life was lived slowly there, as if coffee were sold by the hour, not by the cup. The linoleum floor was more faded by time than by footsteps.

Pearl and I repaired the garden fence and gate. We cleared half a ton of manure from the barn and raked it into the garden. We collected the old construction material scattered about the property, recycling what we could and burning the rest in bonfires. When the chimney masonry was dry, I started the stove so the drywall could dry. Our fatigue made us feel the progress in our bones as we built our future together.

Pearl discovered a pipe poking up through the soil outside the barn. I probed around the wellhead and found the other end. I connected the pipe so that when Frank completed the plumbing, the barn would have running water, ready for horses.

We advertised in the Undercurrent, the local tabloid:

Barn for Rent. Four stalls,

tack and feed rooms,

concrete floor. $150.

“Frank is a week behind schedule. He has run out of vacation. Now he only works on weekends, but someone has to keep the fire burning to keep the walls drying.”

“I can’t delay my vacation—union rules. If I can’t paint in June, I will waste my vacation.”

“And we must move out of my condo before my tenant arrives at the end of May.”

“Can we move into the house before Frank is finished?”

“Frank said no. Even his wife called to convince me not to move in until the drywall is sanded.”

“We can wait for two weeks in your parents’ place.”

“What about our stuff? Haul it twice?”

“We can move our things to the unfinished side while we stay with your parents. Elizabeth’s son, Kieran, is on school holidays. We can hire him to guard our things for two weeks while we stay with your parents.”

“Good idea!”

Pearl talked to Elizabeth on the TTY and then to Kieran:

THIS IS A BIG ADVENTURE FOR YOU TO STAY ALONE YOU KEEP THE FIRE AND TAKE YOUR FOODS FROM FRIG AND HEAT ON ELECTRIC STOVE OUTSIDE CAN YOU DO THAT? GA

COOL GA

THERE IS NO TV YOU WILL BE BORED TELEPHONE IS LONG DISTANCE TO HOME SHORT CALLS ONLY ARE YOU SURE TO STAY ALONE FOR TWO WEEKS? GA

I WANT TO DO IT IS BOW AND ARROW OK? GA

YES PERFECT WE WILL PICK YOU UP I WILL CALL YOUR MOM TO ARRANGE SK

Pearl showed me a re-homing notice in the Buy and Sell Press for a two-year-old German Shepherd. He could keep Kieran company. We drove to Coquitlam to meet the dog, Whisky, and decided to adopt him. We arranged to pick him up on the day we brought Kieran and our goods to Bowen Island.

On the way home, we stopped at a pet shop to buy supplies for Whisky. We left the shop with dog supplies, cat supplies—and a kitten.

On moving day, two men from Bowen Freight came in their truck, loaded our goods, and left for Bowen Island. We put the kitten in our truck and went to collect the dog. The dog was limping on three legs, and a forepaw was wrapped in a bloodstained rag; the irresponsible owner thought nothing of it. We took him straight to a veterinarian. After surgery, he lay down in the truck with a plastic cone on his head and fell asleep. We picked up Kieran two hours later than expected and drove to Bowen.

Frank and his son were plastering when we arrived. The movers had finished unloading our cartons into the unfinished, unheated, unlit, and windowless west wing and were now unloading the bed, piano, kitchen table, and houseplants into the heated and dusty east wing construction site. Pearl took care of the kitten and made the bed for Kieran, covering it with plastic. Kieran walked the crippled dog. I hung our clothes inside plastic bags on a rod over the bare earth basement floor. Whisky liked the kitten. At first, the kitten was terrified by the dog, but they quickly became friends. Rokus’s jeep sputtered up the driveway. Whisky yanked the leash from Kieran and chased the jeep, barking furiously and doing his best to be a guard dog while running on three legs with a cone on his head. Rokus and Jenny stepped out of their jeep and greeted us, so Whisky stopped barking and greeted them, too. They welcomed us to Bowen Island and gave us a frozen rabbit.

I drove Kieran to the General Store. It had everything an islander needed, even videotape rentals, and prices for goods other than ice cream were not much higher than on the mainland. It had a butcher, who also butchered for deer hunters and hobby farmers. It was a liquor agency, so, unlike all liquor stores in Vancouver, it sold both cold beer and groceries.

“You can have anything you can cook. Frozen pizzas?”

“With cream sodas and Oreos?” said Kieran.

“Sure. And some mini-pack cereals with plastic spoons.”

“Ice cream bars?

“Sure.”

“Choice! Can I get more comics? And dog biscuits?”

“Sure. And don’t forget toilet paper.”

The woman in front of us bought groceries without paying for them. The cashier wrote the amount in a book, and on the wall behind her was a list of defaulters. I opened an account, so Kieran could walk to the store and get whatever he needed.

I taught Kieran how to tend the woodstove. Pearl held the flashlight in the windowless basement.

“Tonight, you can use the electric lamp on a cord, but Frank’s using it right now. We let the stove run down today so I can show you how to light it. Use paper, cedar kindling, sticks, split wood, and then a round of wood. When you do it right, you only need one match.” I closed the stove, lit a match, and pushed it through the grate. Fire raced across the paper. In a few minutes, the flue pipe groaned as the stove came to life. I closed the grate to slow the burn. “One round at a time, and not too much air. Keep it burning, but don’t let it get too hot.”

We tied Whisky to a tree and drove to the Snuggler for dinner.

“Tonight you will be the first to sleep alone in that house. Keep Whisky with you, enjoy your comics, buy more at the store if you want, and call us or Rokus or the police if you have a problem. You can walk to the store in half an hour.”

“Ten bucks a day!”

Pearl hugged Kieran. “I want to have a boy like you.”

When we returned six days later, Kieran was sitting on a log, whittling. His jeans were streaked with drywall dust. We walked inside. White dust was banked like snowdrifts.

“How was it?” signed Pearl.

“No one came except Frank and his son, mostly his son. Frank told me to stay outside, so it was boring. Except for the deer! I never saw one close before! The kitten kept pooping in the houseplants, so they stink. Whisky slept with me. Can I go home now?”

“All right. Whisky can guard now.”

“You’ll have to tie him up. He barks when Frank or his son come near. Whisky hates them!” Kieran held his finger to his lip. “Look—Bambi’s back! Hold Whisky and watch.” Kieran stepped out the door, pulled some weeds, and approached the deer. It ate from Kieran’s hand, and I took a photo.

I had the photo framed, but Kieran would never see it because Pearl and Elizabeth soon parted ways, and Pearl refused to give it to him. I began to notice her relationships were unstable, and she didn’t care if others suffered while she settled a score.

Pearl drove Kieran home, a four-hour round trip. I drove to the Bowen Building Centre to rent a rototiller and began tilling the garden soil.

When Pearl returned, she and Whisky joined me in the garden. She was laughing. “I discovered why Kieran wanted to leave early: the cookies and sodas are gone—and the outhouse is full of diarrhea!”

We pulled stones and weeds. Whisky started staggering, and then he collapsed. I thought he was choking, so I held him upside down while Pearl squeezed his chest in a Heimlich maneuver. He was breathing, but he didn’t move.

Pearl stroked him and called his name; it sounded like “Eeh-ih.”

“What was he chewing?”

Pearl showed me the stick she had been tossing.

“That’s foxglove—it’s poisonous!” I ran up the driveway, found some charcoal in the bonfire ashes, ran back, and poked the charcoal into his mouth. We dribbled in some water. Slowly, he recovered.

We planted vegetable seeds until dusk. Frank and his son were still working. We drove to the Snuggler for dinner in our gumboots and overalls and did our best to wash in its bathroom. When we emerged from the restaurant, the sky was a blaze of stars.

When we drove back, we saw the glow of our house through the trees for the first time. The view was magnificent. We were in love, we had our land, and we were building our future.

Frank was gone. I sprinkled Dustbane on the plywood floor and swept it. We went down to the basement to stoke the stove while Whisky cowered at the top of the stairs, terrified of fire. Our flashlight beams were white cones in the smoky air.

We took the utility lamp into the bedroom. I took the pistol from the lockbox, loaded it, and tucked it under a corner of the mattress. Pearl peeled back the plastic sheet covering the bed, pushed Whisky into the hallway, and closed the door. We put our clothes in plastic bags and slid naked between the sheets, shivering. I switched off the lamp. The moonbeam through the skylight fell on the bed like a spotlight—it was perfect. We pulled back the blanket and began to make love. Whisky whined outside our bedroom door, as he would do every time we made love. I jerked and pulled back.

Pearl pushed me off her and sat up.