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"Now this ain't pretty," Ernest had said, "so old Walter picks it up by the handle quick as anything and tosses it out the open door of the place, only Carter's come looking for me. You get the picture; there weren't nothing left of him. Only the leather on his boots and belt weren't burnt through. Sixteen. Went up like a marshmallow at a camp roast. That's no way to go - screaming. You think he expected to go out like that? Sixteen?" And then, at that moment, Bea had set her hand on his shoulder. Briefly, he'd felt maybe she knew what was going on inside him. Instead, she was pointing out his ex-neighbour in the front window of the bar.

Ernest had had to leave, he was so unnerved by her. He thought she'd be dead by now, nearly thirty years later. He wondered if she'd happened into the place just this once, or if she'd be coming back. Ernest didn't think he had the energy to find a new bar and start all over again. There weren't many places left in the town to drink that he hadn't already tried. Cumberland was only an hour from Ottawa or Montreal, depending on the direction you drove out of town, but he couldn't move away, not now, at his age. He was comfortable at Malouf's. He liked coming with Figgy after work and setting himself down with Nick for an hour. The man was something to look forward to at the end of the day.

Out on the street walking away from the bar and this ghost of an ex-neighbour, Ernest felt his belly burn with anxiety. He didn't want to be alone forever. This is what he usually thought when he was drunk, heading home. The quiet walk by himself was the worst part of any night, anticipating the apartment being empty when he got there. The cold or the heat or the wet were nothing to the loneliness growing in him, welling up in his chest, his feet pulling it from the ground with each step.

Approaching the corner of Water Street and Johnson, too drunk to care what he was doing, he veered left into the entrance to the civic centre arena and its adjoining park. He was going to delay the feeling, if he could, or cut it short entirely.

He crossed the empty lot. The breeze grew cooler, coming off the river. The St. Lawrence was narrow at this stretch, narrow enough to see the houses across the way, on the island, which was the Mohawk reserve, set in the middle of the river between Cumberland and the U.S.
The strip was deserted. Ernest hung out beside the hockey arena, watching the boats in the marina bob on the water, but no luck. Not a soul was out. Eventually, he continued down the trail that ran behind the arena and then the air force building and on into the bush where the paving ended and the small hiking trails began. By the time he was under the large bridge to the U.S., with its grey metal bulk above him, the large girders and rivets, he knew that nothing was going to happen tonight, especially now, in the cold, when he didn't feel quite drunk enough. He turned towards Sumac, pissed off with the bar and himself, and picked up his pace for home.

Alphie had been wild when Amanda met him last summer, and she'd liked that. He had a habit of pulling the brim of his ballcap down over his eyes and looking out at her with a grin, his hand sitting on top of the brim or still grabbing it, and his teeth so small and white. He had a cast the first five weeks they dated so Amanda thought him aggressive the way he'd grab her with his good arm and pull her into him. He smelled of cigarettes and sometimes cologne. The whiskers on his face would burn and scratch and she liked his tongue pushing against her lips and rolling down the underside of her mouth.

He was a boy, and eager. If she put her hair up with bobby pins he'd pull them out and drop them so she'd have scratches from when they made out on the floor. If she worked his cock up and down in her hand he'd play with both her nipples, flicking them with his thumbs, the one arm dirty white and crooked at the elbow. This is when she had him in control most, with her hand upon him and both arms working and he noticeably bent. She'd liked that, the way the cast seemed to make him jumpy with frustration, how he'd be wound up and aggressive and grin at her, eating meals too fast or drinking, lighting a joint and dragging half of it back with the first inhale.

The week the cast came off he seemed just about the same. When he picked her up at the curb after work, he was howling at the moon, he was so happy. He drove them the twenty minutes to the campsites further up the St. Lawrence, with a lot along the river and a tent all set up. Amanda liked facing the tent towards the water, so that the first thing she saw in the morning when she pushed back the nylon flap was the river, and the small islands with pine trees on them.

The first night that weekend, they didn't go in for the usual drinking and carousing, so his friends came by, rattling on the tent flaps and making noises outside as a complaint. They shone flashlights on the canvas. Amanda was sure she made shadows next to it and wanted to stop, or get Alphie to make them go away, but he wouldn't and she felt horrible with her legs hoisted up. She felt cheap. And crazily giddy from it all. Her stomach made somersaults and the sex felt wild and dangerous. She grabbed Alphie's bare ass and hung on with her eyes closed till it was over.

Nothing got to be so reckless or uncomfortable after that, but the feeling stuck with her. She wasn't sure if it was Alphie or just the whole business of that night bothering her. The thing was, the cast hadn't changed him like she'd thought. Without it, he was still wild, still skittery and pent-up. What she'd attributed to his being injured and limited, and so bound to disappear, stayed on and seemed worse. With two free hands Alphie was simply faster, rougher, more difficult. His hands seemed to be everywhere. If she went to sit down he'd open a palm under her so she'd sit on it accidentally. Or he'd pull at her bra strap, tickle her ribs.

This was Tuesday night and they were out at a bonfire. It was early and already he was frustrating her with all his touching and pinches. She'd tried to be sweet with him by curling into his chest so that he'd come round to being cuddly back but he only wiggled a finger down her thigh with the other hand. It inched towards her crotch until she slapped it. Then he started all over. When she'd had enough she told him she was ready to go home and eventually they got in his car and left.
"So what do you want to do?" he asked. He drove them down the old Number Two highway that ran alongside the river.

"Go home."

"I want to drive around for a bit."

"But I'm tired."

"We'll get there. I'm just taking a bit of time to unwind," he said, then added, "Relax, it's early."