Border Songs (34 page)

A frenetic piano melody rang out from the basement while she drank from the faucet until she felt human again. She finally descended into the paint-fumed cellar, which was cluttered with canvases splashed with blacks, blues, yellows, golds, greens and browns all in similar swirling dashes, one horrific imitation after another of van Gogh’s famous last painting of a flock of blackbirds flying over farmlands into a menacing sky.

Her father choked, blushed and clutched his bony chest, his pinched face and spindly arms all so remarkably paint-splotched that he looked like a living rendition of the painting he was struggling to replicate. But from his stricken expression, Madeline realized she looked even worse.

He dropped his brush and swung his childlike arms around her, wet paint and all, her relief rising like anesthesia until she cried loud enough to compete with Glenn Gould’s desperate piano.

T
HE DECISION-MAKING
process was second- and third-guessed, then mocked. Why hadn’t they waited and made certain they’d actually catch someone before raiding the first tunnel ever discovered along the Canadian border? Why had they forced the Mounties’ hand and left border cops with nobody to apprehend but chemo-ravaged Dirk Hoffman?

Patera argued that the sunken truck tires blew any chance of surprise. Still, the prospect of apprehending smugglers in the act at eleven in the morning seemed bleak. As Agent McAfferty asked Sophie, “What self-respecting douche bag gets to work before noon?”

Dirk professed complete ignorance of the nearly finished, ninety-yard tunnel that stretched from the Damants’ outbuilding just north of Zero to his large shed just south of Boundary. He’d sublet that entire thirty-acre rectangle, he explained repeatedly, to a Ferndale raspberry farmer named Daniel Stickney “Talk to him!”

No drugs were found inside the tunnel or on either side of it. What the Mounties did discover on the Damant side, however, was a barn full of lumber and dirt. The adjoining “party house,” as they called it, was owned by Roland P. Nichols, who apparently didn’t exist. Madeline Rousseau had been spotted there twice, yet under questioning she claimed she’d visited it only to see an acquaintance named Marilyn, who was sharing the house with others. No, she didn’t know her last name or whereabouts, nor was she aware of any tunnel. Her father backed her up, swearing that she’d been living in his guest cottage for the past two months, caring and cooking for him on a daily basis.

This investigation was eclipsed three days later by a raid on a former Molson brewery east of Vancouver, in which seventy-three officers participated in the seizure of an indoor pot farm so huge the Mounties didn’t know how to describe it. “Thousands and thousands of plants” was all they said publicly, “worth tens of millions of dollars.” Nineteen people were arrested, including reputed kingpins Emmanuel “Manny” Pagaduan and Tobias C. Foster. This bust was the culmination of a yearlong undercover investigation, according to the Mounties, who suggested the brewery farm and the border tunnel were part of the same operation.

On the American side, locals marveled at the audacity of such a long four-by-four-foot underground passage, built to last with half-inch plywood, two-by-sixes and rebar. Its architects even thought to wire and vent it, though apparently hadn’t factored in the possibility of a twenty-ton feed truck parking on top of it. If this million-dollar tunnel, as everyone soon called it, had been uncovered a month earlier, Patera might have brokered further investments in northern security; but with nothing to show other than vague conspiracy charges against a Ferndale berry farmer, in effect it weakened his case. No congressional delegation flew out to gawk at this outrage, no budget adjustments were advocated, no editorials called to fortify the border, no Minutemen held vigils. The U.S. media spun it as comic relief, another aside from the border buffoons, especially once one reporter realized the pissed-off but still uncharged Dirk Hoffman was the cancer patient who’d previously set off false radiation alarms.

His guilt or innocence was hard for most locals to ascertain, but his take on things was as clear as ever:
WELCOME TO AUSCHWITZ
. This greeting looked more out of place the longer it stayed up. The BP accelerated its exodus, and the entire valley quieted as raspberry fields were put to bed, illegal farm workers returned to their homelands and fair-weather residents abandoned their toy ranches. Customs interrogations softened, too, and the few remaining agents grew increasingly reluctant to confront anybody, especially after the immigration-detention centers maxed out. The Princess of Nowhere herself was sent back to Brazil
the prior week, once it was finally sorted out that she spoke an oddly accented mix of Portuguese and her native Tupian. Captured illegals were now simply put on the street with the promise they’d leave the country voluntarily. Consequently, arrests amounted to little more than annoying paper shuffles and flimsy agreements. “Catch ’n’ release,” as McAfferty called it.

The border cams—first feared, then ridiculed—were now forgotten. Nineteen-year-old Americans resumed crossing the ditch for the ritual thrill of legal drinking. More Canadians ventured south to buy groceries and gas and awaited the September 10 grand opening of the Lucky Dog Casino just over the line. Bud smuggling slowed down, as if there’d been a cease-fire or the outlaws themselves had lost interest, although a better explanation surfaced in
The Economist
, which concluded that the rising Canadian dollar had accomplished what the drug czar and Border Patrol and police forces couldn’t.

What lingered was the gossip about Brandon. People obsessed over his Superman-like ability to detect a tunnel where everyone else saw dirt, pavement and a ditch. They shared testimonials of watching him build strange things—could you call them sculptures?—throughout the county.

Sophie finally persuaded even Jeanette Vanderkool to discuss Brandon on camera, but it didn’t go as planned. As soon as she asked about his childhood, Jeanette insisted they change places. Sophie sat in front of the camera, grinning apprehensively.

“Everybody shares themselves with you,” Jeanette said. “Who do you share yourself with?”

“The dead, mostly.” She smiled at her camera. “My first partner kept demanding more distance, then got it.
Boom
. An aneurysm. We talk a lot. My second one left for a blonde who didn’t ask questions. Died in a convertible two years later. We talk too. And, of course, my father. We did an oral history of World War II together at the V.A.s in every air force town we moved to. I’d do the recording, he’d ask the questions.”

“Who’d you do it for?”

“See, I didn’t realize it, but all those letters from the publishers and TV stations were rejections. It didn’t seem to matter, though. Most people didn’t ask or seem to care who or what it was for. My father was the sort of person people told everything to.”

“Did he die in battle?”

“No. Riding a lawn mower in Houston, when a truck tire bounced down an off-ramp over his fence and killed him instantly.”

“Do you make this stuff up as you go?”

“Who’d make up something like—”

“Well, it’s just such a freak—”

“Freak accidents, in my life, have been the norm. I was hanging up my ice skates when I was fourteen … I was really into skating as a kid. Dreamt of the Olympics and everything. So I was hanging up my skates in this locker when someone asked me a question. I pivoted like this and a skate fell down and the blade slit my wrist.” She raised the scar to the camera. “Took two surgeries to sew the ligaments back together. Everyone thought I’d tried to kill myself. That was the year before I was sleeping in a tent with a friend—an acquaintance, actually—who died instantly when a gum-tree limb fell on her and didn’t even touch me. You want more?”

“Where have you lived?”

“Nineteen different states. You want the cities?”

“What jobs have you had?”

“Stewardess, research librarian, nursing assistant, substitute history teacher, sex instructor, masseuse. Lots of things.”

“You taught sex-ed in the schools?”

“No, I taught groups of women how to get comfortable with their sexuality.”

“You’re serious? You’ve got all these men primping for you, but you’re not sleeping with any of them, are you?”

“Marilyn Monroe once said sex is the opposite of love. I’m afraid there’s some truth to that when it comes to men.”

“Poor thing. You’ve never had a good man, have you?”

“Is Norm a good man?”

“A great man. A wonderful man who worries too much.” A desperate expression washed over her face, as if she’d just lost something. “Did you,” she said, “did you answer my question?”

Sophie ran a pinkie finger around her tight smile. “I’m a lesbian.”

Jeanette paused and tilted her head. “Oh, that is so delightful.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’m asking the questions today, Sophie Winslow. So what are you really doing with all this?”

“Dad always said he wanted to do an oral history of
now
. To do as many interviews as it took in one place and time until the truths rose up. That stuck with me. I’d wonder what it would be like to know what everyone on a plane was thinking at the same time. If you lined all those thoughts up, would it add up to anything? So when this place came to me, it seemed as good an opportunity as any to try, for once, to get my arms around a people and a place and a time. You know, a community time capsule of sorts. I lucked out on the timing, of course, but it took me a while to figure out what my real subject was.”

“And that would be?”

“Your son.”

Jeanette cocked her head as if to shake water from her left ear. “Come again?”

“He’s your son, but he’s our story. He’s not only unique and honorable, but he’s also the only one who’s incapable of …”

“Of what?”

“Of posing. Do you have another half hour, Jeanette?”

N
ORM STALLED
in the boat barn, pacing along the full length of the fifty-six-foot-six-inch mast he and Brandon had roped—in sections—to the truck and hauled from Anacortes in the slow lane with his hazard lights flashing. Why hadn’t he waited until he’d found a good price on a short rig? The taller stick would come in handy in light air, sure, but fifty-six-six? Christ. He’d read enough to know that the bigger the mast, the bigger the sails and the bigger the trouble.

He’d pulled the trigger on the rest of the rigging, too, from some salvage guy in Sacramento, of all places, who swore it was all brand-new and should arrive by the following weekend. Flipping through the Yanmar catalogue for another look at the two-cylinder twenty-five horse, he pictured his shiny sloop swaying in the boat-lift slings at the marina, rocking his head slightly to enhance the fantasy.

He didn’t know what exactly explained it, whether the stroke had cleared his head or if it was the removal of his daily burdens or what Jeanette would probably call karma. He just knew things looked as different as they did after the first snowfall. Brandon, especially. He was far better at running the dairy than Norm had expected and seemed to communicate more easily than ever. But Norm still couldn’t make sense of the notoriety he continued to generate. The tunnel discovery was a freak show unto itself, with people always stopping by to fawn over him. And he flatly couldn’t believe what Sophie had told him about the pothead professor taking a serious interest in Brandon’s art. Plus she now was throwing an art show cocktail party strategically scheduled
just hours before the grand opening of the casino. Jeanette said it would feature some of their son’s work that nobody had ever seen. He’d even received an invite in the mail. When would it ever stop?

The idea of everyone standing around staring at Brandon’s paintings went down like castor oil. He’d never understood art for art’s sake, which left him bored and snickering at the suckers who bought into it. Brandon’s took it a step further and confused and embarrassed him, as if it exposed something unflattering about the Vanderkool gene pool.

When daylight flashed inside the barn, Norm could hear crescendos of laughter coming from next door. The party sounded large even by Sophie’s standards, so apparently even the anti-casino doomsayers were turning out en masse to see just how cheesy this “Vegas-style” monstrosity was inside, after first checking out the artwork and grabbing a few free drinks.

“Brandon?”

The youthful voice puzzled him, since he’d assumed it was Jeanette coming to scold him about being late for the party. He stepped out from his semi-enclosed workstation, looked down and saw nobody. “Hello?” he hesitantly replied.

A moment later, a slender, short-haired woman with bright eyes ducked out from beneath the broad camber of the hull. It took Norm a couple breaths to recognize Madeline Rousseau.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Didn’t mean to interrupt—”

“No bother.”

“Saw the light and couldn’t resist peeking,” she explained. “I had no idea how big it is. You could go anywhere in this, couldn’t you?”

“If I can get her out of the barn.”

“Can I have a look inside?”

“By all means.”

She climbed the stairs, stepped confidently aboard and spun a Lumar winch. “Look at the size of these suckers.” She disappeared below, clucking and whistling. “Had
no clue
it would be this … awesome.”

Norm didn’t notice the knee twinges as he descended into the galley.

“Bronze portals, laminated beams, teak trim. You’re a real craftsman, Mr. Vanderkool.”

Norm blushed. “Don’t look too close.” He’d heard the professor had put her in rehab for a couple weeks. He’d also heard she went away to college in Ontario, or had gone to see an aunt in Manitoba. He unlatched the electrical box and waved her over to see the color-coordinated wiring, feeling like a sweaty kid showing off his science-fair project. “Got it all labeled, see? Bow light. Anchor light. VHF.”

She at least feigned interest. “I’m stalling,” she confided after he shut the box. “I don’t feel up to going to Sophie’s quite yet.”

“Me neither.”

She laughed, and Norm wondered why he’d just now realized how pretty she was. He’d always thought her sister was the beauty. “You were looking for Brandon?”