(A very small experiment in fiction.)
He was going home. After nine years all over the place. Logging in the West. Flat bed runs out of Winnipeg. Canning factory in Truro. All that had followed those five years in the clink for a really stupid store robbery, armed with big knife. And a good quantity of cocaine courage. Money for the habit dontchyaknow. That had all been hard. (Staying out of the fights. Listening for night time danger. Kicking the habit, a couple of times. Monotony in the metal shop for laughable wages.)
One large suitcase stored below in the Greyhound. Sister Barb's Owen Sound address on a note in his wallet. A few simple gifts amassed for her and the two girls. They would be in their mid-teens now. Had bothered with the occasional letter about developments...boyfriends, school hassles, interests blossoming for teaching and pharmacy. No one else wrote or phoned. He had felt so far out of the loop. A no-good ex-con, until some friends at the trucking raised his horizon just a little.
Bus stopped in Guelph. Big guy got on for the seat beside Harry. Grumbled a welcome. Squeezed into the chair beside and moreso. Was this cramped fiasco going to last for the whole remainder? Hoped he was not a chatty one. Nope, he was a reader. Out came the pocketbook. Puckered face buried in fiction. Espionage Harry thought.
It would not be a long stay with Barb and hers. But he needed to start somewhere. Stability, encouragement being much in demand. He had missed the chance to help when Steve died. Her wonderful guy. Terrible flatbed accident up on Highway 11 in the fog near Kapuskasing. Two years back. It had weighed on him. No other really sincere connections, except perhaps for that prison Chaplain, and a couple of AZ drivers and the dispatcher woman with one of the companies.
Light rain kissing the window at his side. Needed sleep and peace ensuing. Disturbed and wakened by the Big Boy Reader, who got off with a smile in Durham. Sun had returned again with new freashness for this late September day. Their bus driver had announced at the outset that he would be stopping for forty minutes break and food in Varney. Pebbles was the spot. Wonderful new buffet restaurant, bakery and farmers' market. Take out packages being the suggestion. Happy picnic tables over to the side.
Harry was starting to get that feel of an opportunistic teenage adventurer. But he was forty-three. Smiling. Looking all around. Even chatting a little bit. Yeah Preacher Buddy, you had been right. 'God is good and full of second and third chances'. GOOD ALL THE TIME. Regardless.
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