LEAVING TOWN
Phil Jones

With Deep Purple booming and Calgary in the rear view Fenwick is starting to feel like his old self. He fishes a smoke from his jacket and depresses the lighter with a flourish. Is there anything finer than putting your back to a place once you'd used it up? He doesn't think so.

Calgary. Lord Jesus what a hole. He'd come, like they all had, for the work. Two years and a dozen shitty jobs later the oil boom has sputtered. Just hard cores left now, riding the echo. So he stuffed his clothes into the same backpack he'd arrived with and headed south.

This is the part Fenwick likes best. Flying down a highway, somewhere between A and B. God knows he'd seen enough A's and B's. But he liked it still, the feeling he was new again. That when he got to where he was going, he could be anyone he wanted.

An hour south of the city, in the middle of an endless straight stretch, he stops for a hitchhiker. Fenwick never picks anyone up, but he needs help with the drive if he wants to make Vancouver by morning.

"Where you headed?" the hitcher asks, standing at the open door. He s a meatless kid with a mouthful of ruined teeth and raw, pockmarked skin.

"The coast." Fenwick answers.

"Oh man, that's great." The kid pulls himself into the truck, tossing a green garbage bag to the floorboards. "I've been stuck here for two days. Thought I'd have to walk out. Thank you, bro."

His hands flutter to his lap. They are pale, slender hands with a chunky gold ring on the left index finger. When the door closes Fenwick picks up a faint armpit smell.

"I m going there anyway," he says.

Before too long the kid is rambling on about his exploits in the big city and guzzling Fenwick's beer. Radio reception is poor, so Fenwick can t help picking up the details. Seems hitcher-boy had landed a job at an all night Chevron.

"Sweet gig bro. All you could eat. Hot dogs, pop, you name it, he gushes, reaching into Fenwick s cooler again.

Less than a week later his manager had noticed the till coming up short and the missing food. A loan against my pay, was all, he assures Fenwick.

He'd gone back the next day to plead his case. One thing led to another, and before long the two were wrestling over the day's take. He'd flown out the door with the money clamped triumphantly in each hand. The kid shoots Fenwick a wry smile.

"Frontier justice, he says, crushing the empty can and tossing it out the window.

Fenwick is all for frontier justice, but sharing this would only lead to conversation. Instead his eyes ping-pong between the garbage bag on the floor and the kid's gold ring.

Two hours later the sun rips a scar across the western sky. Foothills rise around them like islands. The kid has only stopped talking long enough to siphon more beer. Fenwick stares out the window, half-drunk, trying to dial him out. The stories remind him too much of the ones he's been hatching himself. The ones he ll recite when his friends notice he s got nothing to show for the last two years. He hears his own calculated logic pull up lame and hobble from this punk s mouth.

"How the hell are you supposed to get ahead in that place? Freaking cowboys. They get the jobs, the promotions. They even get the pussy.

Fenwick has had enough. He slows down and yanks the truck onto the shoulder. "Piss break," he announces, popping his door open.

The kid heads out on to the prairie, his cowboy walk faltering every few steps. He's railing on about bad jobs, bad bosses and worse luck even as his pants hit the ground. Fenwick pulls his door closed and starts to roll. He s working his way back onto the road when he catches the kid in the rear view. The dumb shit has left his pants behind and his skinny white legs are churning like an eggbeater.

Fenwick stifles a laugh. This could be some fun, he thinks, easing off the gas. He turns and watches. The kid closes the gap and starts to pound on the fender. Snot and tears stream down his face.

"My stuff you fucker!"

He struggles along side, snagging onto the box with one hand, trying to haul himself in. Fenwick mouths the words 'sorry bro', and puts his foot into the gas.

"Oh Jesus stop! I can t get Stop!"

Fenwick gives him a two-fingered salute and swings all four wheels onto the asphalt. This psycho kid just won t let go. Fenwick s Speedo is close to twenty mph before the frothing face falls away. In the side mirror he catches a flash of green shirt rolling through the dust.

There s your frontier justice, he mutters to himself.

Fenwick stops a few miles up the road. He opens the bag and finds a half-eaten sandwich and a pouch of Drum tobacco wrapped in smelly coveralls. This is what all the fuss was about? He pockets the Drum. In the next town he drops the bag into a trashcan beside a liquor store where he grabs a dozen more Pilsner.

~

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