Short Story by Joan Baril

This story won second place in the Canadian Authors' Association (Niagara Branch) 2009 short fiction contest. It is published in Ten Stories High, a compilation of the winning stories.

WINE
By Joan Baril

I skip through the police station door, across the lobby into the back room where the policemen eat their lunches, drop the black metal lunch box on the wooden table, wave to old Sergeant McKee behind the front desk and almost bump into my father in his police uniform when I’m back out on the sidewalk.

“Steady on, lass,” he says, leaning down towards me. “Just the gal I want to see. I’ve something to say to ye, so mark ye well.”

My father always looks a bit scary in his uniform. Maybe it’s the shadow of the peaked cap that hides his cheery blue eyes. Maybe it’s the dark jacket with the golden buttons and the sergeant’s stripes that makes him seem impossibly huge. He puts his hand on my shoulder.

“Ye know that Elsie you play with?” he says. “At the Castle Confectionary on Winder Street.”

“What about her?”

“You’re to stay away from that store.”

“No-o-o.’ It comes out as a wail.

My father shakes his index finger at me. “Janet, don’t blether,” he says. “I’m telling ye for your own good—stay away from that store. The place is an outfit and that’s all ye need to know.”

Parents are such difficult people. I nod quickly, “OK, OK,” but inside, I’m boiling. When I get to the corner, I turn and yell, “You’re so mean,” but he’s gone and the double doors of the Port Arthur Police Station are swinging shut.

I kick snow clods as I walk home. I know very well why I have to stay away from the store. Even though Elsie’s father is famous in Poland and worked for a newspaper there and was a Party Zan in the war, here in Canada, he’s a bootlegger.

Elsie Dolinski and I became friends three weeks ago when she arrived in our grade three class. She’s a fairy girl with sky blue eyes and spun gold hair that wisps across her face. Last week, when it first snowed, she came to school in a white coat with fur trim, white leggings and carrying a white fur muff. She looked as if she’d stepped off the shelf of the Eaton’s doll department.

The first time I go to Elsie’s place, we play cut-outs in the big kitchen behind the store. We set our Princess Elizabeth paper dolls on the stairs leading to the bedrooms above. Her mother, a tiny woman with yellowish grey hair in a roll around her head, bustles back and forth from the store to tend to something on the stove. She was a writer in Poland, Elsie tells me, and wrote children’s books but now she’s a storekeeper with a big blue apron over her flowered dress. For some reason, she calls me Liddle.

“Here you, Liddle,” she says, setting a cup on the table. “Nice you visit my Elsie. Sit, sit and drink this.”

I lift the milky brown liquid to my lips breathing in a magical spicy aroma.

“What is it?” I whisper to Elsie

“Coffee.”

The first I’ve tasted. We only have tea at home and I’m seldom allowed a sip. The forbidden drink tastes dark and woody but I swallow it all. I feel I’ve passed an important test. I’m a grown up at last. Wait till my sister hears about this, I think. Meanwhile Mrs. Dolinski is ripping the cellophane from a double pack of Sally
Ann cakes. She gives one to each of us. Heaven.

On the next visit, Elsie takes me into the basement, reached from a trap door hidden beneath the kitchen rug. Tiny steps curve down into a stone cellar. Even though the windows are half-blocked with snow, the sunlight weaves a few pale patterns on the floor giving us enough light to see. I look around the deep stone box. It’s like the cave of a mountain troll. In the shadows at one end, the furnace stretches out its many arms, and, at the other end, a tower of wooden crates rises to the ceiling. Blue and white bottles on a side table wink at us in the snowy light. But the most interesting items are the five roly-poly wooden barrels, almost as high as me, lined up down the centre of the room. The barrels look like five fat dwarfs. The top of each one is covered with a square of black fabric.

I lift a cloth and lean over the circle of darkness. The smell is thick and sweet, like cough medicine. The liquid comes almost to the top, inky bluish black and shimmering slightly as if an invisible hand is stirring from below. A few tiny bubbles bob up and I quickly drop the cover.

“Isn’t this against the law?” I say to Elsie trying not to sound suspicious. I know all about the bootlegging of wine because I often listen in as my father discusses it with his policeman friends.

“It’s for the family. It’s not illegal if it’s for the family.” Clearly Elsie also knows her criminal code.

“He’s making an awful lot for just one family.”

“My papa has a magic potion, and when he uses it, everything is legal.”

Before I can ask about the magic potion, her father calls us upstairs. He’s set the table with plates and cups. Elsie’s mother is not home. It‘s Sunday and she’s at mass. The store is closed.

“Liddle, you want coffee?”

“Yes please.”

“Sit here. Eat those donuts.’

He sits at the table with us and grins. “In the war, Polish people no got coffee,”
he says. I’m not sure why that could be a hardship, so I say nothing. “Lotta time, no food, never mind coffee,” he goes on.

I feel I’m drinking liquid earth but I force it down. I’m positive it’s making me smarter. I’m turning more grown up every day.

“But when you hiding,” Elsie’s father says, “you so scared, coffee no matter. Even food no matter.” He smiles at Elsie and she smiles back. He takes out a pouch and begins rolling a cigarette. “No tobacco either,” he says.

I study him. He doesn’t look like a war hero. He’s hefty and short and when he walks, moves from side to side. He has on the same thick clothes he wears for his job at the shipyard—heavy black wool pants and layers of plaid shirts. His head seems to grow straight from his shoulders and his mouth is wide. When he grins, and he grins often, I glimpse a gold tooth. A golden grin, I think.

At recess, a week after my dad tells me to stay away from the Castle Confectionary, Elsie asks me to visit the next Sunday afternoon. I smile happily at her because I’ve figured out a way around my father’s orders. It’s taken a week of hard thinking. His words, don’t go into that store, drum through my mind even when I’m in bed. But, one night, just before sleep, a flash of brain power hits me. I realize he said nothing about going into the kitchen. The kitchen, I reason, is part of the house and a house is not a store. So the kitchen is OK. And, what’s more, the store is closed on Sundays, so I couldn’t go into the store even if I wanted to.

“I’ll be over after lunch on Sunday,” I say

We head for the basement immediately closing the trap behind us. However, just as we reach the bottom of the stairs, we hear the blast of a whistle. Big black boots run through the snow outside the windows and heavy thumps come from overhead. I climb on a wooden crate and look out. Three policemen are lined up across the back yard. Chief Reynolds is waving his arms and blowing a whistle.

Elsie begins to spin in a dithering circle. She’s wailing. “Police. No, no. Hide, hide.”

She pushes me behind the pile of crates and dives in after me just as a square of light speeds across the floor and the trap is flung open with a crash. We crouch like mice against the stone wall. Elsie has her head down in her hands, but I can see everything through the wooden slats. To my horror, the police chief, followed by my father and Sergeant McKee, run down the narrow steps.

Mr. Dolinski runs after them, talking fast. “Not vine, No no. No vine. Never. Ween gart. Ween.”

The chief strides to a barrel and tosses off the cloth. He sticks in his finger and tastes. “Right. Here’s the evidence and lots of it. There’s enough wine here for the Russian army. This should convict our Pollock friend.” He turns to my father, “Marsden!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get upstairs on the phone. Tell Banning to send the truck to haul this stuff away.’ My father clatters up the stairs.

While the chief is throwing the cloth covers on the floor and tasting the contents of each barrel with his finger, old Sergeant McKee is stalking around the basement. He picks up two bottles from the table and puts them in his jacket pockets. He puts two more bottles under one arm. He then heads toward our end of the room. When he gets to the crates, he looks directly at them, and I’m sure he sees us through the slats. I shrink even smaller thinking this is the way a mouse feels when it’s cornered by the cat. The chief is now halfway up the stairs and yells, “Come along, McKee!”

Elsie’s father is now alone in the centre of the room. Elsie crawls out but he shakes his head at her and waves her back in. For such a burly man he moves fast, taking a glass bottle from a shelf and splashing liquid into each barrel.
“It’s the magic potion,” Elsie whispers to me. A nasty sharp smell slowly pervades the room. I cover my mouth and nose but the sickening odour moves through my fingers and into my head.

I can hear Mr. Dolinski shouting as he runs back upstairs. “Come down, police. Come down, police. Ween gart, ween gart.’ When he reappears a minute later with old Sergeant McKee, he’s still yelling. “See, ween gart. I make to sell in store.”

“What the hell,” says Sergeant McKee. “What a stink. It smells like…’
He sticks a finger in the closest barrel and tastes. “Vinegar. God in heaven, it’s vinegar.’ He puts a finger in each barrel. “All vinegar.”

“I sell in store,” says Elsie’s father. “Good ween gart.”

“Christ.” McKee turns and runs up the stairs.

Next, Chief Reynolds comes down, tastes the first barrel, makes a face and retreats. Mr. Dolinski follows him up the stairs, one hand behind his back flapping at us to stay in hiding. Boots bang and thump above with a lot of yelling mixed in, but after a long time, when I hear the roar of motors in the back lane, I know they’ve left at last. We creep out on our hands and knees. Elsie’s face is streaked with dust and tears. She flies up the stairs crying for her father. I follow. No one is in the kitchen but, through the open door to the store, I see Mr. Dolinski looking out the side window, his large arm around Elsie’s shoulders. He’s grinning.

I grab my coat from the pile in the back shed, and shoot outside like a bird from a trap.
***
My father can’t stop laughing. My sister and I, in the kitchen doing the supper dishes, see him through the open door to the living room. “Why the old man left him alone in the basement, I’ll never know,” my father says. “Leaving him with his wine. And the crafty blighter just splashed some vinegar in each barrel and that turns everything to vinegar. You can’t arrest someone for making vinegar.”

“But didn’t he have some bottles of wine already made up?” says my Uncle Everett. He and my Aunt Sissy are over for Sunday supper.

“Oh, family use. Can’t get a conviction on three on four bottles.”

Aunt Sissy speaks next. “I don’t see why you’re bothering poor immigrants at a’. Aren’t they’re just trying to get along? And on a Sunday an a’,”

“Och, no, Sissy. We’re not sic monsters and on a Sunday morning, the wife and kiddy go off to church, so we spared them the upset. But Chief Reynolds loves a raid.” He starts to laugh again slapping his knee. “When the lads at the Fort William station hear about this…’

Sergeant McKee and a young policeman called Constable Aduno are at the front door. McKee carries two Eaton’s shopping bags that he lifts into the air as he steps inside. “Ween gart,” he calls out.

My mother comes into the kitchen. “Leave the dishes, girls. Come and try a sip of wine.” I toss the dish towel on the rack. There’s never been wine in the house as far as I remember. My mother makes us carry out some cups and water glasses on the tea tray. Constable Aduno opens a bottle using a twisty metal tool he takes from his pocket. When Sergeant McKee looks at me, he gives me a big wink. I quickly look at the floor.

“To the Poles,” says Sergeant McKee raising his glass. “God bless them.”

Constable Aduno takes a sip. “Not bad. The old con artist knew what he was doing.” He takes a gulp. “Excellent. He could’ve been Italian.”

I taste a bitty drop from my tea cup. Sour. My sister is making a screwed up face and sticking out her tongue. This stuff tastes worse than the vinegar smelled, worse than coffee, worse than the worst medicine, worse than dandelion juice.

My aunt and mother are also unimpressed.
“I’d rather have a nice cup of tea,’ says Aunt Sissy.

In bed that night it sounds as if a grown-up party is going full swing downstairs. Aunt Sissy sings, “Stop your Ticklin’, Jock,” her special party song. My mother sings “The Little Red Hen” and my Uncle Everett belts out “The Biggest Aspidistra in the World,” my favourite of all the grown-up songs. I can hear my father laughing. Every once in a while I catch old Sergeant McKee’s voice chanting, “Ween gart, ween gart.” If he spied me behind the crates, he didn’t tell my father. I send him a million thought messages. Thank-you, thank you.

I think about Elsie. Did I ever mention to her my dad was a policeman? I don’t recall, but she’s sure to find out one day. Until then, there’s a chance for more coffee and treats at the Castle Confectionary.

Sleep is sliding over me like a magic spell. I snuggle into the blankets. My sister snores beside me with her mouth open.

A short story by Joan Baril

This story tells the tale of a co-op house in Winnipeg in the early 1970's. The residents want to help Americans who come to Canada to avoid the Vietnam War. The story was first published in Thunder on the Bay, a local anthology by the Writers' Circle.

THE DODGE
by Joan Baril

When Carl told us about the draft dodger he’d met at the homeless shelter, we were all in favour of letting him move in with us. Actually Carl, Catherine and I were in favour; Maurice had reservations.

“We don’t have enough room, for one thing,” Maurice said. He was stretched out on the living room rug, his head near the wall and his stocking feet close to the door.

“There’s an extra cot in the basement,” I said. “He can sleep down there with Carl.”

“Christie, look around you.” Maurice waved one foot in the air. “There’s only three chairs in here. And the front hall is a pile of junk. It’s the Great Wall of Winnipeg out there.”

He had a point, I had to admit. The small entry was so jammed with snow boots, running shoes, text books, and skates you had to push hard to open the front door from the outside. We couldn’t use the back door; we’d covered it with insulation and plastic because it leaked so much heat.

“We don’t use this room often,” Catherine Semenek, Maurice’s partner, pointed out, “but the kitchen’s a good size and that’s what matters.” She was in her yoga pose on the rug beside him, her coffee cup balanced on one knee. She raised her arm with one finger in the air. “And why did we rent this house? Wasn’t it to take in Vietnam War resisters?” She frowned down at him. “Now, you’re backing out over a few fucking boots?” She was hitting Maurice’s ideological hot button. He sighed.

“If we’d take stuff to our rooms and leave the front for snow boots only…” I ventured, but Maurice and Catherine, who had heard this argument before, were standing ready to leave for their evening activities.

But Carl stopped them cold. “Ray’s got a Dodge,” he said.

“The guy has a car?” Maurice said.

“A ‘67 Dodge. Ray’s got it parked behind the homeless shelter. The clutch is shot, but if he had a place to work on it, he says he’d get it going.” Carl told us he went with Ray around to the back of the shelter and saw the Dodge half buried in snow. He immediately thought of the old unused garage in our back yard. And Ray offered a deal. As soon as the car was running, we all could drive it as a co-op vehicle. He’d pay the insurance and that would count as his rent.

There was a brief silence while we took in this information. “We’ve got to get ourselves together on this,” Maurice said. “Another meeting tomorrow?” He gathered up his briefcase and piles of marked French papers from the bench in the hall. Catherine raced upstairs to get her dance bag. They were heading for the Portage Bus, he to Red River College where he taught French two nights a week, and she to her feminist theatre rehearsal.

After Carl and I cleaned up the coffee cups, he shrugged into his winter jacket adding a pack laden with pamphlets, posters and hand-outs for the Waffle meeting at the university. He also carried the coffee urn. Since I was the group’s secretary, I had the minutes in my shoulder bag as well as a completed history essay I intended to slip under my prof’s office door. I also had a cloth bag packed with coffee, serviettes, stirrers, sugar and creamer packets.

On the bus, as we steadied everything on our knees, I thought about how much easier the trip would be if we had a car. When I told Carl this, he smiled. “It’s all coming down, Christie. I can feel it. First a car for us. Next, at the NDP convention, the Waffle will bring the party back to its roots.” Carl was great, I thought. Even though he was an American, he was dedicated to the cause, to use the Waffle faction within the NDP to push the party farther to the left.

Carl Rosen was a deserter from the U.S. Marines who had moved in six months ago. He slept in the basement because there were only two tiny bedrooms upstairs. He was a dark-haired, soft-eyed young man who fit in well, paid his share of the rent on time with money from a part-time job at the food co-op and, besides helping out with the Waffle meetings, he volunteered at the homeless shelter.

The next day, during my morning classes at the university and my afternoon job at the candy counter of the Metropolitan Theatre, I fantasized about the Dodge. I saw us dashing around the city with ease putting up our demo posters. I pictured us loading the car with supplies for the Waffle meetings. I imagined us driving some of the older members who couldn’t get out in the winter. After my shift, as I waited for the bus at the corner of Portage and Main, I kept warm by conjuring visions of cozy rides to school in the mornings and sleepy rides home after work. Whenever a car went by with passengers cocooned from the cold, I smiled. Soon, my turn.

Later, in our old-fashioned kitchen, the coffee was perking. I tapped my empty cup with my spoon to get everyone’s attention. “We’ve got to make a decision about this guy at the homeless shelter,” I said. Carl, who’d made challah bread and chili for supper, and was now tackling the dishes, turned and wiped his hands. Maurice, with his chair tilted against the kitchen counter, closed the French text on his lap but did not come to ground. Catherine, who’d been doing yoga poses at the end of the kitchen, flipped to her feet. I set out all the reasons why we needed a car.

“No argument from me,” Catherine said. “We need this vehicle for our political work.” That sealed it for Maurice. Carl would invite Ray to move in the next day.

“Where’s the key for the garage door padlock?” I said. “Is it still on the hook by the back door?” I was in a hurry to get the scheme going.

Raymond Burns was from Minneapolis. He was a short guy in his twenties with a narrow unshaven face and a bouncy walk like a gymnast. Instead of long flowing hair like Maurice’s or Carl’s, he had a duck cut in front and a little pony tail in back—a sort of 50s, 60s combo. That evening, Maurice filled him in on the house rules. “And there’s no smoking inside,” he said when Ray brought out a pack of Players

“No problem, man,” Ray said, putting the blue box back in his shirt pocket.

The next evening, our new resident cooked up clam chowder, dished it out and, after supper, following the house rule that the cook does the dishes, tied a towel around his waist and started in.

Catherine brought out the posters she had silk screened for the anti-war demo. They showed a bleeding maple leaf with the words “End Canadian Complicity in Vietnam” superimposed on it. “What do you think?”she said.

I put down my coffee cup. “Terrific,” I said. Carl and Maurice nodded in agreement.

But Ray turned from the sink and shook his head. “Not my bag, man. I hate politics and I hate the police. I stay clear of everything.” Catherine rolled up her posters with a snap.

That winter I had early classes and I ran into Ray in the kitchen most week-day mornings. He’d make me a cup of instant coffee and set it before me with a shy smile. When I headed out laden with school books, he always held the front door open for me in an old-fashioned way that I found endearing. A fondness was growing between us.

“Bye for now, Christie,” he’d say as we parted on the sidewalk, I to the bus stop and he to walk down the street and around the corner to the back lane to get to the garage. I’d see him striding along lighting a cigarette as he went. He never complained about the round-about walk or suggested we take the plastic off the back door.

We’d each chipped in eight bucks to get the car towed and another ten for parts, but Ray was having trouble with the brake pads. Since neither Maurice nor Carl knew anything about auto mechanics, he said he was going to try to find a guy he met at the homeless shelter to come over and help him. Meanwhile, he fixed the clutch so things were moving along.

Thursday night was scrub night at the candy counter. After we shut down at 9:30, we took everything apart and washed and disinfected every surface including the stinking popcorn machine. Usually I didn’t get home till close to eleven and, on this Thursday, as I walked towards the house, I saw a glint of light from the garage window. Ray must be working late. Maybe his friend came to help with the brakes. I went around to take a look at the car—I hadn’t seen it yet.

But the padlock on the garage doors was firmly closed. I pushed on one of the doors, moving it back a little to make a slit wide enough to see inside. The garage was in full light. Along one wall was a pile of boards, and along the other, a few old windows. Ray was not there and neither was a car. The space in the middle of the garage was blank. I pushed harder on the old door to expand the crack to get a better view. No tools were around, no oil cans or dirty rags or anything to suggest this was a mechanic’s shop. Obviously, he cleaned up very well.

“Hallelujah,” I said out loud, dancing in the snow. The car was finished and about time, I thought, for I realized, with a snip of surprise, it was more than two months since Ray had moved in.

Everyone was asleep in the house, so I couldn’t tell them the good news. The next morning early, there was Ray in the kitchen. I threw my arms around him.

“I’m so excited,” I said. “Where is it?”

“Where’s what?”

“The car.”

“In the garage. I’m doing the brakes today.”

I stood back and looked at him. A crumpled look was taking over his face. For my part, a big light was dawning.

“There’s nothing there,” I said stupidly.

With a sudden movement, Ray pushed past me and ran down the basement stairs. I followed. Carl was asleep on his cot but jumped up naked when he heard the noise. “What the hell?” he said.

“What did you do with the car? Did you sell it?” I yelled, but then another thought hit me. “You never were going to share that car, were you? You lied to us all the time. Carl, he lied to us—he sold the car.”

Ray paid no attention. He was grabbing clothes and shoving them into his duffle bag. Then he yanked his sleeping bag off his bed, deked around me and clattered up the stairs. I ran after him, but he was out the front door running down the street, the end of his sleeping bag trailing along the sidewalk. When I turned back, Carl was standing in the kitchen. “What the hell?” he said again. “Has something happened to our car?”

It was only after I found the padlock key under Ray’s pillow, and we went around to the garage, that we understood the truth. There never was a car. The place was too clean; the dust was undisturbed on the floor. A few footprints by the door and a squashed cigarette butt were the only signs of activity. The fact of no car settled on us very slowly. It came out that none of us actually saw the car. None of us had gone around to the garage. We were all too busy. Ray showed Carl a green Dodge parked in the snow behind the homeless shelter but Carl never checked to see if it was taken away. Later that day, Carl went to the shelter, walked around the back, and there was the same green Dodge buried deeper than before.

We’d been conned.

Was Ray really a draft dodger? Was he even an American? Where did he spend his days if not working in the garage? Why did he go out to the garage that evening and leave the light on? There was no way of knowing.

Our next house meeting had focus. “I figure we’re each down two hundred dollars or so when you total up the cost of car parts and the food that bastard scarfed down,” Maurice said.

I sighed, not for the lost money; but for my imaginary car, for the demise of my warm and happy green Dodge.

“We’ll just have to check more carefully the next time a draft dodger wants to move in,” I said. “We must keep in mind they’re not all like Ray. I don’t want this incident to sour us on helping war resisters.” I was trying for a pragmatic tone.

Carl interrupted me with a burst of laughter. “That little rat was the best bull shitter I ever met,” he said. “Last month, he told me he’d got the parts off an old junker at the dump. Supposedly, that took a week. And he said his friend, the great expert on brakes, was in the hospital with a broken foot, but he was getting out soon.” These recollections made him fall into giggles that erupted off and on throughout the meeting.

Maurice ignored him. “I’m through with taking people in,” he said. “My life is too busy to worry about house crap.”

Catherine stood up from the kitchen table. Her voice was high-pitched and shaky. “That Ray made us look like fools with everyone we know, and I don’t want to talk about it any more. I’m sick of the topic.” She ran from the room, put on her coat and boots at the front door and slammed herself out.

At the anti-war demo, I looked for Maurice and Catherine among the marshals, but they were not there. I couldn’t see Carl either. I waved my sign but I didn’t feel like chanting. The frost breath of the small crowd twisted into the air. Above us, the windows of the American consulate were blank. My feet felt like ice, and my hands were freezing on the sign handle. I stomped my boots and walked straight ahead, but my mind was twisting this way and that.

All our carefully planned political schemes were under siege, and I realized that Ray had left us with much more than an empty garage.