The Heat is On

Literature, I’ve always thought, is the history of missed connections. This year, the challenge of Monday’s fiction contest—writers were asked to work the phrase “summer friction” into their stories—seems especially well suited to my half-baked theory. In most of the 70 submissions, characters collide and send sparks flying, as their oh-so-human imperfections rub each other the wrong (and sometimes right) way.

As I read the stories, what impressed me was the range of actions, emotions and insights ignited by the contest’s catalyst. Most of the writers cranked up the thermostat, literally and figuratively. Many authors took the sensual suggestiveness of the phrase to heart—or perhaps another region of their anatomies. (I haven’t read so many sex scenes since going through a Henry Miller phase 20 summers ago.)

Others approached the contest’s seasonal affective disorder more indirectly—as a plot device or thematic cue, a nod to setting or mood. There was post-rave euphoria, post-funeral mourning and a post-modern shoot-’em-up in the weirdest saloon I’d ever encountered. I never knew what to expect when I picked up the next story. And that’s a good thing.

In the end, a handful of submissions emerged from the stack and demanded a second or third reading. It wasn’t easy to rank the finalists, as they share the qualities of all great writing: a vividly realized setting, an originality of expression, and a keen awareness of how our true personalities are revealed in the shadows between our words and deeds.

-David Leach

David Leach is the author of Fatal Tide, a “nonfiction novel” released this spring by Viking Canada, and will be teaching a multi-genre grad class in UVic’s new MFA in Writing program. He has published short fiction in a variety of small literary magazines, including Vanilla Crow, Schrödinger’s Cat and Quarry, all of which (coincidentally, he hopes) are now defunct.

FIRST PLACE WINNER:

Neighbours

By HAL WALLING

Judge’s comments: The author hooked me from the opening scene, with a crisp and authoritative voice, an off-kilter vision of the world, and the writerly confidence to shift gears on a moment’s notice. This random airport encounter somehow manages to be simultaneously suburban, surreal and universal. And the audaciously composed final paragraph stayed with me long after I’d finished all the other submissions. Brilliant.

In the airport, two men, bound for different gates, different hemispheres . . .

A moving walkway.

The first enters carefully, one stilted step to consider new speed. He wears a brown three-piece suit, candy-cane tie, cuff links to match his gold wedding ring. He carries a thin briefcase and paper airline satchel.

The second walks close behind, four or five paces. He takes the same step, a hop to it, airborne. He grips the rubber rail, also bears a smooth gold band, also carries a case. It is summer outside, but he wears a black pea coat and a New York Yankees baseball cap. Summer, somewhere, but not where he’s headed.

Certain stations of everyday life—especially those man-made—honour unwritten rules: perhaps in some places, second- and third-world countries, these rules are posted on stickers and signs; in North America, like old clichés, they go without saying. You may coldly occupy two seats on a bus or train, but only until there remains no other empty pair. You may cruise in the left lane, fine, for whatever harebrained reason, but slide right when traffic nears. Stand anywhere you please en queue at an ATM, but know what does and does not constitute leering.

The moving walkway learned its one rule from Mother, the escalator:

Stand right, pass left.

Of course none of these laws is practiced any place without some fail, and all are perhaps corroding as society turns inward. In this airport, the man in the brown suit studies his itinerary so closely that he fails to notice the senior couple with matching turquoise weekenders and a pre-boarding flight to catch, hollering twenty, fifteen feet behind, the old lady high-stepping as if through shallow water. And so he remains, tree-still, like a miniature golf obstruction, until his Yankees-capped peer touches his shoulder and says, “Heads roll!”

The man twists around open-mouthed, gathers the hard-charging elderly, and hugs the rubber rail to allow passage. “Thanks,” he says to the second man, who is slightly shorter, but weightless inside his pea coat.

It does not take long, this moment of recognition—the averted eyes on both sides, the posture. To any concerned onlooker, this moment tells a whole story.

But first, an end.

The taller man, facing the weightless one, collides with the concrete floor, first with the heels of his oxfords, then his palms and back. The man in the Yankees cap hops left over the tangle of roots, exits the walkway, and sets down his case before offering both hands.

Standing, they reconstruct their moment, allow it to linger. The man in the brown suit thumbs his scraped palm, elbows bruised, breaths short. He winces, bends to pick up his case and satchel; his tickets have flown several feet away.

“Can I buy you coffee?” the man in the pea coat says. He fetches the tickets one by one, a stoop and stand for each. “Ted, I’m sorry,” he says.

“Forget it, Jake. My plane boards in 10 minutes.” He accepts the newsprint rectangles but doesn’t walk away.

“How’s Maureen at least,” the man says. “And your girls. Ted, I’m sorry.”

“You’ve said that. Maureen’s fine. We’re all just fine.”

“You know we’re sorry, Ted. Sorrier now. A few years isn’t—”

“Six, Jake. It’s been six and we’ve moved on.”

“You moved so quick,” the man says, removing his baseball cap. There’s gray in his hair. “Where’d you move?”

“West, Jake. We moved west.”

“Karen feels awful. The kids, too. And Dexter—”

“Jake, don’t.”

“—you can see it in his eyes. I mean, he’s twelve now, his cataracts—”

“He shoulda been put down, Jake. He’s a threat. You’re lucky—”

“He’s harmless most days, that’s the thing. He’s great with the kids.”

“Tell that to mine.” The tickets are berries in his fist.

“You’re right, Ted, sorry. I’m sorry they saw that. Have you found another—”

“No.” He twists the knot of his necktie. “We looked at a few.”

“What was her name? I can’t remember.”

“It’s not important.”

“Murphy? You had her for ages, didn’t you. Since you were a kid.” The man tugs the Yankees cap back over his hair.

“Jake,” the other man begins, “I’m going to walk away. I’m going to catch my flight. I have nothing to ask you except stand right here, wherever you’re headed. Wait until I’ve passed that book shop. Then, whatever.” With a shiver, the man points his case at a magazine stand, ducks his head, and sniffs off.

Again, recognition, but something familiar, something daily; the man in the pea coat stares straight ahead, a blurred corridor, worthless, opposed electronic walkways. To his left, massive pillars and windows; a roaring machine falls before a bleating sun; wheels grind down, skipping stones, summer friction; God as a boy touching magnets at north poles; then calming, swallow, turn around finally and walk away. M

SECOND PLACE WINNER:

Tango

By MARGARET GRACIE

Judge’s comments: What a fabulous first line! Three simple words, pregnant with metaphorical possibility and a distinct sense of place. The rest of the story doesn’t disappoint, as the author subtly uses a day at the beach to capture the inarticulate isolation of young love.

Clam holes breathing.

Kev pushes his index finger deep into one of the holes and digs. Six inches.

Nothing. The sand is coarser at this depth, mixed with bits of shell and stone. “He’s in here,” he tells Briony.

“How far down?” She watches Kev and the distant ripples of surf.

“Far. I need to shovel.” He bends to his knees to scoop the sand into a mound at her feet.

Suddenly, Briony feels the terror of being pursued. “Leave it.” She walks towards the water into a warm wind that lifts the short black curls from her neck.

“I’m not going to kill it,” he yells.

Then why bother, she wonders. The game seems childish and unnecessary. The day is perfect. They are standing on miles of sandy beach between clear blue water to the east and evergreen trees to the west. Stillness is settling in the rising heat of the afternoon.

It is the great escape they’d been hoping for.

“Here he comes.” Kev’s voice peels away the quiet.

A crab, camouflaged to look like shifting sand, scurries across the beach between them, its claws tangoing side to side. Briony waits until it has found a new hole then turns back towards the water.

“It wasn’t a very big one,” Kev says as he races up to her. She can hear his disappointment. “Cool though, right?”

Briony smiles but keeps her eyes on the sea. There’s something out there, floating on the surface. “What do you think that is?”

Kev squints into the distance. “A boat,” he says with certainty. “Probably somebody fishing.”

“It’s too small to be a boat.”

“A dinghy?”

Briony laughs. “A buoy maybe. It’s pretty far out.”

When they finally reach the waves, Briony holds in her hands a dozen coloured shells that Kev has collected for her.

“So it is a buoy,” he says. “Doesn’t it get tiring being right all the time?”

“Not as tiring as being wrong.” She smiles at Kev and hands him the shells. “Hold these.”

Briony runs into the water up to her knees then plunges into its cool embrace. Cradled on the waves, she kicks her feet until she reaches the bobbing metal buoy.

Looking back at the beach, she sees Kev, pale and thin as a scarecrow, watching her, waiting. He waves with a closed fist, protecting her shells.

There is an island beyond the buoy. And another after that. Briony wishes she could swim all day. Swim to the first island and then the next. Make her way across the ocean and never look back.

But she can hear Kev calling. He can’t swim. Is too afraid to swim. Is afraid of losing her.

Briony remembers meeting Kev at the beer fest last year when her friends sat at the same table as his. He was braver then, somehow more distinct. She feels a bubble of contentment rise as she thinks about the Swedish beers he bought for them and how he bragged about his forefathers’ brewing skills.

I’m coming,” she calls and lets the tide pull her back to shore. Floating on her back, she contemplates the sky. It is so high above her, she knows it is impossible to reach.

Her return is slow, measured. From this distance she can see herself and Kev as others on the beach must see them: two young lovers on a camping trip, enjoying their freedom, the fine weather and each other.

When Briony is closer to the shore, she flips over to begin a crawl and sees Kev pacing at the water’s edge. She wonders again when he will tell her how he really feels.

Her friends have been teasing her for months that he is in love. Briony has been unsure if this is what she wants to hear. Now she thinks she might be ready.

Kev greets her with a brooding smile. “I wish I could swim. Why won’t you teach me?”

Briony shakes the water from her body. “I can’t. You’re too afraid. You have to jump right in.”

“That’s just like you.” He hands her the shells as she watches his green-grey eyes flicker.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She has seen this sudden anger swell in Kev a few times before. She knows by now that he will not explain, perhaps doesn’t even know himself what is to blame.

It’s the heat, she tells herself. Summer friction. Kev’s anger will burn out like the campfire the night before. Best to leave it alone.

They walk in silence back to the beach towels they have laid out in the sun and stretch out side by side.

Briony wakes up hungry. She turns to look for Kev, but the beach is deserted. The tide has come all the way in, nearly lapping at her feet.

She wraps her towel around her and walks back to the campsite. His truck is gone; the tent and backpacks wait for her under the protection of a Douglas fir. She dresses, then cuts potatoes into wedges and heats up the stove. She has no watch and cannot tell how much time has elapsed, but the sun is gone, the food eaten and the fire nearly extinguished by the time Kev returns.

“Were you worried?” he asks.

“Yes.” Worried is not the word Briony would have chosen, but she is too enraged to admit that she was scared. “Where were you?”

Kev stares into the embers. His hands are buried in the pockets of his jeans.

Briony recognizes the dress shirt that he had packed for dinner at the restaurant tomorrow night. “Did you go to dinner without me?”

“I thought you wanted to be alone.”

“Me? Are you still pissed at me about swimming?”

He shakes his head.

“Then what’s wrong?”

Kev bites his lip before moving his eyes from the dying fire to Briony. He pulls his hands out of his pockets and opens his fists to show her the shells he had collected for her on the beach. “You left these in the sand.” He swallows deeply. “I thought that maybe you didn’t want them.”

He drops the tiny shells into the cup of her hands. Briony smells sea, smoke and sweat mixed in her palms.

“But I realized tonight that you don’t know what you want. You want everything and nothing.” He puts his hands back in his pockets. “You want my love but not me.”

Briony can feel the smoothness of the shells against her skin. They are able to withstand the rush of tide and pounding of surf, yet they can crack under the pressure of her grip. “I’m sorry.”

Kev kicks at the bits of kindling by the fire. “It’s not all your fault.”

“Will we still be friends?” A salt tear runs into her mouth, carrying a grain of sand that lodges under her tongue. Briony likes the roughness, the scratching of grain against gums.

Kev steps back further into the shadows. “I don’t think I can.”

Briony swallows the grain of sand. She imagines the crab hidden in the clam hole under the sea. Kev cannot see her sitting in darkness, mouth rounded, sucking in air. M

THIRD PLACE WINNER:

On Their Way

By RAY TUPACH

Judge’s comments: This story is both funny and touching without ever lapsing into caricature—a real danger considering the subject matter: a pair of crusty seniors anxiously setting out on an R.V. journey. Bonus: the most ingenious use of the phrase “summer friction.”

Todd moved in close to the mirror, thinking if he stared long enough, he’d be able to witness one of the pores in his nose give birth to a drop of sweat.

He’d paid nearly $80,000 for the luxury RV. It was real top-of-the-line. He had to sell his home to buy it. It had a lifetime guarantee. Still, Todd wouldn’t turn on the air conditioning. He worried that it might somehow drain the vehicle’s battery at some crucial moment, leaving him and his wife Sundae alone, stranded in the desert. He wondered if he was standing, right then, inside a fully equipped, $80,000 coffin. Todd hated that he worried about things like that.

He heard the voice of his middle-aged son Bernie telling him he was exhibiting signs of neurotic behavior. “Mr. Know-It-All with his university words.” Todd said aloud. “Can’t even keep his family together. When he turns seventy four, I’ll let him lecture me on fears and phobias.”

He stepped back and did a few “muscle-man” poses. One looked like he was forcing open an invisible jar of pickles. He squeezed a flaccid bicep that should have felt like milky veal with a boney hand that should have reminded him of a speckled trout. Todd felt only hard-assed Alberta beef. This made him feel good.

A crow landed on the roof. Its hard little talons tapped the length of aluminum like impatient nails. A cold, embarrassing line slid down Todd’s sweaty back. He looked up at the polarized sunroof, half-expecting to see his 70-something bride staring down at him and giggling. He thought about double-checking the back door, to make sure it was still locked, but he didn’t. Instead he picked up his half of the cutesy matching T-shirt set Sundae had bought. The tag said XL, just like every other shirt his wife bought for him. He pulled it over his head, and it swallowed him whole. There was a slogan printed on the front. It didn’t matter to him what the slogan said. To him, they all said: “Hello—I’m old and not from around here. Please shoot me in the head and rob me.” Bernie would probably point out that font used was comic sans serif before making some sort of comment. Todd had no idea what a font even was. He knew the letters were red.

He supported himself on the pink marbleite countertop to get down a single step and out the back door.

Knee’s really acting up. Maybe we shouldn’t go? The mirror showed this image of a scrawny cross with a white tablecloth draped over it. When he reached for the door latch he heard TAP, TAP, TAP, coming from the other side and jumped back. Can’t a man have a single goddamn moment of privacy? he thought to himself. At least he thought he’d thought that.

+ + +

Sundae probably wasn’t happy but you could never really tell with her. She was cradling a large, snap-loc plastic tub loaded with Hungarian salami, Havarti cheese and enough of her home-made, extra-eggy potato salad to choke an army.

“Take this—it’s heavy. Why is the door locked?”

Todd rubbed sweat from his face into a large T-shirt sleeve and set the tub on the counter. He read Sundae’s shirt: Ain’t getting’ older—just better. Todd sighed.

“I wish you stayed inside with us instead of locking yourself in here, brooding. You didn’t even say goodbye to the kids.”

“Sulking! While you were in there playing with April, I was making sure our batteries don’t run out in the middle of the desert. All of this stuff—the refrigerator, the air conditioning, even the toilet runs on normal, household AC power. Power supplied by DC car batteries. Do you have any idea what that means?”

Sundae smiled. “I have you to worry about those things. Just make sure you get the potato salad in the fridge.” Sundae knew Todd hated wasting food.

“I changed April’s diaper and there was a big, red cut running along the fold in her leg. Poor girl.”

“Summer friction,” Todd said. “She’s too big to be wearing diapers.”

Sundae wasn’t sure but she thought she’d said brooding to Todd, not sulking.

Todd looked at his fingernails. They were thick and rounded and yellow. He wondered what would happen if he soaked them in bleach. He said: “We don’t have to go, Sun. Maybe we can ask the kids to stay with us here, just for a little while longer?”

“Huh? We have to go. If we don’t hurry we’ll be late for the Authentic Indian Shaman Ritual and fireworks display. Randy said they’re putting on a special show-just for us. It wouldn’t be right if we kept them waiting.” Randy was the name of the person who closed Todd and Sundae on the Mystic Journey travel package. He operated from a small office connected to the side of Duane Rampant’s RV Circus, just off highway 17. Randy was Duane’s son.

“I think that RV guy and his son are in cahoots!” Todd said, feeling around the front pocket of his khaki work pants for a tire gauge. “I’m perfectly happy staying here. Now we have nothing but this travesty on wheels and our son is getting a divorce.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Really? Really. I’m not blind. Sundae, I see how they avoid each other. I hear how Bernie speaks to her. Soon, they’ll be locked inside a hot car with a crying kid, driving through the desert. Mark my words-they ain’t coming out together.”

“Ai-ya! Stop it! You should have spent more time just talking with him instead of predicting his failures. You don’t know what’s going to happen!”

Todd took the gauge from his pants and walked towards the front of the RV to check the tire pressure.

 

+ + +

“I hope the new people take care of my begonias,” Sundae said. “I feel like I’ve spent my whole life taking care of them.”

She was sitting high up. Todd was next to her. The large engine of the RV rumbled, waiting to be engaged. They didn’t feel a thing through their padded seats. Sundae kept one hand on a large-print roadmap. Todd had spent hours and days planning the trip from home. When he was satisfied, he traced the route with a bright green highlighter and had the map laminated. Sundae thought it looked a little like the menu at IHOP. She handed Todd his prescription sunglasses.

“Thanks,” is what he said.

The stick shift glided smoothly and four large halogen lights beamed from the rear of the RV. Todd angled the vessel onto the street. He was running his hand through what was left of his hair-looking out the driver’s side window at what used to be his home.

“It’s okay, Todd,” Sundae said. ”I’m scared too.”

“It’s a heavy machine, Sundae. Hopefully the tires won’t fail from friction on those hot roads.”

Sundae reached into her purse and produced a large pair of sunglasses.

“How hot do you think it’ll be, Todd?”

“Hotter ’n hell I imagine. We’ll just have to find out when we get there.”

Small stones shot from the nubs of their wheels. Naturally, they couldn’t hear that. A tub filled with extra-eggy potato salad, enough to choke an army, sat on a pink marbelite countertop.

The RV’s taillights dissolved and the road behind them was left peaceful—almost forgotten. M

The stories by our two Honourable Mention winners—Maija Liinamaa and Pat McCallum—will run in our Last Word column over the next two weeks.

”Summer Friction“ was the topic and the winners of our annual Summer Fiction contest

are the focus