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    Beaver At His Parents' [Episode 2]
    Beaver At His Parents' [Episode 2]
    Beaver At His Parents' [Episode 2]
    Ebook76 pages1 hour

    Beaver At His Parents' [Episode 2]

    By Norman Crane

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    About this ebook

    Every life has a history. Everyone has a home page. Sometimes, to go forward, you have to hit the "back" button. Beaver At His Parents' is a comedy-drama series about Charlie, a lawyer who loses everything and returns to his home town to start over.

    Episode 2: "After Hours"

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNorman Crane
    Release dateJan 1, 2016
    ISBN9781311396235
    Beaver At His Parents' [Episode 2]
    Author

    Norman Crane

    I live in Canada. I write books. I'm a historian, a cinephile and a coffee drinker.

    Read more from Norman Crane

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      Book preview

      Beaver At His Parents' [Episode 2] - Norman Crane

      BEAVER AT HIS PARENTS’: EPISODE 2

      After Hours

      by Norman Crane

      Published by Norman Crane at Smashwords

      Copyright 2016 Norman Crane

      About the Author, i.e. me

      I live in Canada. I write books. I’m also a historian, a wise guy and a cinephile. When I’m not writing, I’m probably reading or trying to cook. Philip Dick, Haruki Murakami and Graham Greene are some of my favourite authors. I enjoy fiction that makes me curious because curiosity makes me creative. I peer under mossy rocks, knock on hollow trees and believe in hidden passageways—not because I have proof of their existence, but because imagining them is itself the reward. I like non-fiction for the same reason. I also like computers, text editors and mechanical keyboards.

      For more info and links to my writing, please visit my website: normancrane.ca

      After Hours

      Quarterville my destination. World of my childhood, town of my upbringing, victim of my soon-to-be inglorious return. Evening’s falling and I’m still on the highway. My Mazda’s not had this much exercise in ages. I haven’t driven this much in years. My eyelids feel heavier with each kilometre, but the flash of headlights on the signs overhanging the highway keep me alert. Some say how far I need to go; others, in orange LCD lettering, instruct me how to properly install a child safety seat. Occasionally, I’m reminded not to drink and drive—and, therefore, to arrive alive. Ahead, one semi-trailer truck decides to pass another and I’m stuck behind both for several minutes. Other drivers honk, I pass the time in reflective silence. The paper cup in my cup holder sits empty, its few remaining milky drops sticking to the sides like caffeinated raindrops, and for the umpteenth time I take the cup, invert it and try to suck the drops out. I could stop for a refill, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t have the energy to start up again. I’ve barely eaten. Although there’s no reason why I have to arrive in Quarterville tonight, I make my own reason: I’ve made up my mind and I shall will myself to bend reality to its demands. On the other hand, it’s just driving. For some this is the epitome of relaxation. Gentle traffic, warm weather, the fairly open road and all of North America at the tips of my tires so long as nobody stops me at the U.S. border. Maybe someday I’ll drive to Georgia, New Mexico, California, but not this day. This day, yawning, I know I’ll be satisfied to make it to Quarterville, Ontario. The only border standing in my way is psychological. I suspect the guards on duty there will really work me over. I expect a lengthy questioning, after which they will hand me a document along with a teddy bear, and stamp my passport with the message: Regressing.

      And under their watchful gaze, I’ll sign my name.

      Broken-hearted.

      Thoughts of Rosie eclipse thoughts of metaphysics, and squeezing my wet eyelids together without closing them I push both out of my mind by focusing on practicalities.

      I know I’ll have a place to stay in Quarterville in what I diligently force myself to refer to as my parents’ home (my legal mind keeps more efficiently calling it home), but I’ll want to get out of there as soon as possible. The potentiality of living with my parents does not fill me with joy. I also have minor savings, both in my wallet and my bank account, so I don’t need to find a job immediately. However, I’ll try. I’ll also try to make friends and especially someone to help me forget Rosie. I fire a barrage of curses at her, each of which hurts me more than the last. Maybe more than one someone, consequently. A litany of someones, all of whom I’ll treat as horribly as Rosie treated me. I pass a sign informing me I have less than a hundred kilometres to go, aghast at my desire to hurt innocents as a pointless act of revenge against Rosie. I backtrack to the idea of making friends because that’s a less shameful topic. I can make them: at the local bars, at a community pottery class, out of the pottery itself, or plasticine, papier mache, words. The surrealism of the English language makes me laugh out loud. That it nevertheless manages to accurately describe my life is not quite as funny.

      I make Quarterville a few minutes after 8 p.m., taking the single off-ramp by which the town hooks itself to the highway. Undo that hook and the town would fall off the face of the Earth. I slow down to the maximum 50 km/h, reach an intersection and wait for the light to change to green. In the meantime, I look around at the familiar places that nevertheless seem foreign: to my left, the colossal car assembly plant where so many Quartervillains, including my parents, work; to my right, family-owned Benson’s General Hardware, flanked by two fast food franchises, one selling sandwiches and the other pizza. In the near forward distance, a few houses share the scenery with car dealerships, a municipal building and a smattering of light industry baring interchangably generic names (Alvaro Inc., HVG Corporation, Lindle & Sons). The businesses, most of which supply the assembly plant, are new. The houses are old. Behind me, the still audible highway ends the town with a certainty usually reserved for denied Supreme Court appeals. Beyond that is endless, rolling southern Ontario farmland. I imagine red barns, Holstein cows and the odd Amish horse and buggy.

      Spotting green, I tap the accelerator.

      I’m heading north. I pass the 24-hour grocery store, twin gas stations that never advertise the same price, the municipal and county libraries (the latter in the basement of the former), one of Quarterville’s two elementary schools, its only public high school, the park where I used to sneak off to play hacky sack during

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