Recently in Farts Like Gold Category

I've always wanted to write a book. And now I'm using this blog to force myself to give it a whirl. Every Sunday night I try to post whatever I've managed to write that week. I'm at 43,849 words now with no end in sight and just coming out of a 10 week dry spell.

It's basically a story about men and women that takes place in a treeplanting camp in Northern British Columbia.

It is very much a first draft. Comments and criticism are much appreciated.

If you want to begin at the beginning you should go to Farts Like Gold: 1.

***********************************************************
I filled a plate with pork chops, mashed potatoes carrots, and sat down at an empty table. Tony sat down across from me.

"How's it going?" he asked.

"Not bad, I guess. You?"

"Good... good...," he said.

"Did you set the tent up?"

"Yes..." he said. "I should warn you. It's not set up quite the same as it was before."

I shrugged.

"It's really comfortable, though. I had a nap in it this afternoon. That's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about. I had this dream while I was sleeping." Tony leaned forward. His eyes stared directly into mine. "The dream was about us. Well, it was mainly about terrapins, but it was also about us."

"Terrapins?"

"You know... Turtles." He craned his neck and made little flipper motions with his hands. "In the dream I was looking at a big aquarium, a big wall-sized aquarium like in a zoo or something, but it wasn't in a zoo. At this point I didn't realise where it was. Anyway, there were terrapins in the aquarium - three of them. One of them had strange dreadlocky seaweed trailing from its shell, kind of like someone had glued a bunch of flexible inch-thick pipe-cleaners to its back. Another was some kind of weird oblongy terrapin. It was definitely a terrapin, made out of raw organic terrapin material and it was terrapin coloured and everything, but it also looked a lot like a squid without tentacles - just the head part of the squid, except it was a terrapin. You follow?"

"I guess so."

"The third terrapin was just your normal standard issue terrapin. Anyway, they were all duking it out in the tank. It was this big terrapin battle of biblical proportions. You may think terrapins are slow but you have to remember that, fundamentally, they are creatures of the sea. When they are immersed in their element there is no beast more graceful, cunning, or daring. And the aquarium was filled with much terrapin darting and twirling and balletic writhing. And there were also all these beautiful, brightly coloured fish in the tank. They weren't doing much. They mostly just hung in the water in small schools trying to stay out of the way of this massive battle of the terrapins.

"As I watched, the dream camera zoomed back to show that the aquarium was in a small nightclub. You know, the kind with those little round two person tables. There were people sitting at the tables, but I couldn't make out their faces. Both the people and the tables were silhouetted against the brightly lit aquarium. The people were watching the terrapins battle it out. Slowly, the entire tableaux resolved itself into a static image. It all became flat and glossy and the silhouettes of the people became more clearly defined. I suddenly realised the two people in the centre of the picture were you and me. And then I realised I was looking at an album cover with the words 'Logical Shout' at the top and 'Battle of the Terrapins' just below it."

Tony watched me carefully for my reaction. "Do you know what this means?"

I stabbed a carrot with my fork and put it in my mouth. "No idea," I said.

Tony held both his arms over his head. "The two of us -- we are Logical Shout! That's what the dream meant! We are destined to form a band called 'Logical Shout' and release an album called 'Battle of the Terrapins'! It is our destiny."

I shook my head. "Dude. It's your destiny to be rock god. Not mine. My destiny is to get out of this camp and drink until I either forget about Lucy or throw up. Beyond that, my fate is a little fuzzy."

"No, no, no," said Tony. "We're a team, the two of us. We're a duo. Don't you remember how we played together? We were a hit! We were better than Simon and Garfunkel! Do you honestly think they could have rocked out to the Lemon Song as well as we did?"

"Simon and Garfunkel?"

"Never mind. Listen, 'Logical Shout' - it's brilliant!" He was nodding frantically now and his arms kept shooting straight above his head, seemingly at random. "One little nap and I've been inspired with a band name and an album title. We should spend a couple of weeks here. You can make us enough money to fund a demo and I'll write an album's worth of songs. Can you imagine the bass solo for something called 'Battle of the Terrapins'? It will throb into your body through your knee joints and suck the juices from your heart."

"Tony, man, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I'm not staying in camp. I'm leaving as soon as I possibly can. I'm not comfortable here. Even if I did stay, I'm not in any shape to make anybody any money. In case I haven't mentioned it before, my hand is broken." I held it up. "And, anyway, why am I the one making the money?"

Tony dropped his arms to the table. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your hand is broken. Your heart is broken. So what. Fix one and you fix the other. What did you do all day today? Alistair saw you chopping up trees and pounding posts into the ground. Your hand didn't stop you from doing that, did it? And the reason you'd be the one making the money here is because this is your world. Just like the circus world is Alvin's world. And my world is the world of creativity - the world of song and spirit and genius."

"Well in my world, there are no pork chops left." I showed him my empty plate. "I'm going to try to find out what's going on tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your dinner." I stood up and took my plate over to the guys doing dishes.

Virginia had tracked down Steve, the owner of the company who was in a hotel room in High Level. He and Brendan and Joe were working on a plan to get the trees into camp tomorrow. It sounded like there were basically two options - using a helicopter, which would be easy but be expensive; and using a boat which would be much more difficult, more dangerous, but probably a bit cheaper. My money was on the boat.

I wasn't doing anything useful in camp and I wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone so I walked down to the river and sat on the remains of the bridge. I spent most of the day there. A lot of the time I just watched the river to see if it looked like it was going to dry up any time soon. It didn't, so I started to think about the best spots to dock a boat on either side of the river so we could get trees across it. After a while, as word spread around the camp, groups of people started showing up at the river to see the damage for themselves. I avoided them as much as possible.

Around about noon I walked back to camp. Everyone had heard about the bridge by then but it didn't seem to bother them. They all looked relaxed and happy - pleased have a day off and a bit of excitement to talk about. I made myself a couple of sandwiches and ate them standing up by the lunch table.

I borrowed a shovel and a polaski -- which is a fire fighting tool with an axe on one end -- and went back down to the river. I spent the afternoon building a docking area for the boat. I flattened down a path from the road to just downstream of the remains of the bridge. I chopped some branches and logs and laid them down to make a firm platform on the bank. I cleaned up as much of the loose debris from the bridge as I could and pounded a couple posts on either side of my docking area to tie the boat to.

I couldn't be sure it would ever be used but it was something to keep my mind occupied. I finished up around dinner time and headed back to camp.

>> Farts Like Gold: 54

Virginia was right; I was pissed. In fact, right then, a more accurate description was that I was in denial. I still couldn't accept the fact that I was stuck in camp. I didn't want to deal with it. So when Tony came by to ask if we were setting up my tent again, I sent him off to deal with it on his own.

"But I don't know anything about putting up a tent?" he said. "What if I put the wrong spot?"

"Just put it in the same place it was before," I said. "It's a great spot. Trust me. Besides -- everyone's in camp today. There are a ton of people around who would be happy to give you a hand. I just want to sit for a minute and figure out how the hell we're going to get out of here."

"Okay," he said.

Of course, when he got to my old tent spot, he discovered that Lucy had set up there. After all, I was right; it was a great spot. And, as far as she knew, I wasn't going to be using it, so why not snag it?

Tony probably wisely decided that this wasn't a piece of news I needed to hear right at that moment.

Lucy was hanging up some wet clothes on a line she'd strung beside the tent when Tony showed up. She was surprised but seemed pleased to see him. "Hey, what are you doing back?" she said. "Decided to stay a while? Give planting a try? Did you jump out of the truck as soon as Kent slowed down?"

"Well, not quite," said Tony. "The bridge is out. Kent's back too. We're kind of stuck. Not that I'm not willing to give planting a try. I would have been happy to stay anyway. In fact, since I'm here I wouldn't mind sticking a few trees in the ground if I get the chance. Who knows? It might be the life for me."

"Uh-huh," said Lucy. The line she had hung the clothes on was sagging so she tightened it up a bit.

Tony shifted awkwardly. "I see you moved your tent."

"Yeah. I didn't realise you guys would be coming back."

"The world is full of surprises," said Tony. He shifted the pack on his shoulder. "Kent asked me to set our tent back up. I think we're probably going to be here for a couple more days."

"Uh huh."

"I'm just not sure where I'd put it. Kent said to put it here but..."

"Yeah," she said. "I see. And I've just moved in. It's a problem."

"I don't suppose there's any chance..." said Tony.

"I could move my tent back?" asked Lucy. "It wouldn't make any sense. If I take my tent down then we'll have two tents to put up. The two of you are leaving soon anyway. The simplest thing to do would be to find a new spot for your tent. In fact, why don't you put your tent on my old spot?"

Tony sensed that I would be none too pleased with this plan, but he was in a mood to avoid conflict. After a moment's reflection he decided Lucy's plan was the simplest in the short-term so he agreed.

"Great," she said. "I'll show you where it is."

>> Farts Like Gold: 53

Cassandra and April were sitting on a bench beside the dining tent smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee when Tony and I drove back into camp. I felt a sudden lethargy when I stopped the truck. I couldn't bring myself to get out so I just rolled down the window.

"We're back," I announced. "Are Brendan or Joe around?"

April shook her head. "They're out on the blocks. They left a bit after you did. Did you forget something?"

Tony popped his head out of his window. "The bridge is gone! Absolutely destroyed. Poof! Presto-chango! No bridge."

Tony's excitement made the truck seem suddenly confined. I left him to describe things to Cassie and April and headed for the radio in the dining tent. Everyone inside stared at me as I entered. The rumour mill had been working overtime that morning.

Brendan was the first to answer when I asked them both to get back to me. "What's up?" he asked.

"The bridge is out. We're cut off."

There was nothing but silence for about 30 seconds. Then Brendan clicked his mike and said "Well... shitsicles on toast." Another pause. "Right, well, I'll head back into camp. Keep trying to raise Joe. Maybe we can fix it."

I doubted we could do anything about the bridge. There was no bridge left to fix. "I'll keep trying Joe," I replied. "See you soon."

I got a hold of Joe a few minutes later. Both he and Brendan met up at the remains of the bridge. After a few minutes staring into the river, they drove back to camp together.

Brendan phoned his contact at the Ministry of Forests while Joe and I had a look at the maps. The maps didn't give us much cause for hope. It looked like there was another bridge but it was so far upriver that it didn't help us. Even if we did get across the river, there was nothing connecting us to the main road system. We'd still be stranded. We'd just be stranded on the other side of the river. We were stuck on a road to nowhere.

After Brendan phoned the ministry, he called Virginia at the office back in Edmonton.

"Sweet buttery waffles!" she said when she heard about the bridge. "Is everyone all right?"

"Well, a few folks are a bit hungover, but aside from that everyone's good."

"How are you doing for food and fuel?"

"As far as food and propane goes, we're good for about a week. Gas... Depends on how much driving we do."

"Well, sounds like that shouldn't be too much of a problem," cackled Virginia. "And, most important, how are you doing for trees? Are you going to be able to keep working?"

"We've probably got two days worth of trees left and there's a reefer due tomorrow which should give us another five, give or take."

"So, basically, as long as you can get the trees across the river tomorrow, you're good for a week."

"Well, yeah, I guess so."

"What about Kent? Which side of the river is he on? Did he make it out?"

"Nope, He's the one who told us about the bridge."

"Ha! That poor bastard! I bet he's pissed. Oh well. Adversity builds character. Tell him I said that."

>> Farts Like Gold: 52

Back at camp Lucy walked down to where my tent used to be. She sat down on the log I used to sit on to put on my boots in the morning and took a sip of her coffee. Her sleeping bag and several of her clothes were strewn about the ground. Fortunately for her, I hadn't thrown them that far and so, for the most part, they were on ground that had been shielded by my tarp and was fairly dry.

It was a good camping spot. The ground was flat and well drained. The log she was sitting on was a convenient feature, and I'd left a laundry line up between a couple of trees. There was a good view from the log through the trees down to the creek we got our water from. The best part was that it was on its own. Towards the creek, the ground started to slope down steeply enough that you couldn't camp on it. Above the camping spot and on one side the trees were dense enough that there was no room to put up a tent. Above this, the hill started sloping up again.

Lucy absorbed all this as if seeing it for the first time. She balanced her coffee mug on the log. Then she gathered and folded up all of her clothes and placed them carefully on the log beside the coffee cup. She hung her sleeping bag on the laundry line to dry and in general, tidied the area up a bit. Then she went back to her own tent and stuffed all of her belongings in her backpack. She spent the next hour and a half moving her tent from where she had originally set it up to where my tent had been.

While Lucy was stealing my tent spot, Tony and I were checking out the remains of the bridge. What had been a small, quiet river was now a raging torrent. The bridge had been supported on either bank and in the middle. The middle support, along with most of the deck of the bridge itself, was now gone. In its place was a new rapid where the water roiled over the foundation of the missing support.

"Are you sure this is the way we came last night?" asked Tony.

I looked at him in a way carefully calculated to inform him he was an idiot. "Yes," I said. "I'm sure we came this way. This is the only road into camp."

"But not the only road out of camp?" he asked hopefully.

"Yes, oddly enough, the only road into camp is the only road out of camp," I said.

"But there was a road heading up the mountain. That must go somewhere. What if we turned left instead of right when we left camp?"

"That road goes up the mountain. It's a logging road. It doesn't go anywhere useful."

"Surely it must connect with something."

"I suppose it might," I admitted. "Brendan and Joe might know. I haven't looked closely enough at the maps. But I'm not optimistic. It basically just ends in a maze of cutblocks."

"What do we do now? Should one of us swim and go for help?"

Despite the insanity of this suggestion, I was oddly tempted by it. Yes, there was a good chance I might die attempting it, but at least I wouldn't have to go back to camp.

On the other hand, the water looked damn cold.

"Or we could just use the phone back at camp," I said.

"Oh yeah. Good idea."

>> Farts Like Gold: 51

Lucy was making coffee when Brendan and I walked into the dining tent. I felt like I was looking at a ghost. It was silly but my instinct was to turn and run.

Instead I stood there and took one slow, deep breath. She looked up just as I started moving again. She smiled and I thought, "Okay, don't be foolish. Everything's fine." I decided then and there that I wasn't going to ask any questions. What was the point? I was leaving camp. It was one random night. She didn't expect me to be here. If I hadn't been here I wouldn't have suspected a thing. And, besides, most likely she was innocent.

"Hi Kent," she said.

"Hi Lucy."

I leaned forward and kissed her. She took a sip of coffee almost as soon as my lips left hers. There was something about that one small gesture that made me change my mind. My resolve had lasted all of ten seconds. I sat down on the bench facing her with my back to the table.

"I couldn't find you last night." I said. "Where were you?"

"Well, you know - party night. It was pretty crazy."

"It wasn't that crazy. And this camp isn't that big." I was angry now. "You weren't in your tent. You weren't in my tent. You weren't in the dryshack, the dining tent, the cookbus -- any of the trucks. And it was pouring rain."

"Well, you know. I just got to talking to someone. And we wanted to get away from everyone. And it was raining and so I just spent the night there. It was no big deal."

It took a lot of effort to stay sitting down. I knew if I stood up, I wouldn't be able to keep still. Standing would lead to pacing. Pacing would lead to arm waving. As it was, my voice was getting louder despite my efforts to control it. "Whose tent was it, Lucy? Who did you just get to talking with? Who did you spend the night with?"

She backed away slightly and leaned against the breakfast table. She held the cup of coffee in front of her mouth. "It doesn't matter - just a friend."

"Well, it wasn't Kathy. It wasn't Cassie. It wasn't April. It wasn't Amber. It wasn't Matt. It wasn't Paul. It wasn't Alistair. Do you want me to go on? The camp's not that big. Even if it's a secret, it's not going to stay that way. Somebody's got to know and they're bound to talk. You know what it's like."

"Well it doesn't have to stay a secret for long."

"What?"

"It doesn't have to stay a secret for long," she repeated. "How long until you leave me again? An hour? Two? It only has to last until you're out of camp. And then when will I see you again? A couple of weeks? A month? At the end of the season?"

"Leave you again!" I said. "I broke my hand! It's not like I said I was going out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back."

"Look," she said. "I'm not saying I did anything wrong. I'm just saying -- how was I supposed to know you were in camp? If I'd known you were in camp, I would have been with you."

I stood up. I didn't care if I started waving my arms now. "You're crazy. I don't know why I hadn't seen it before. You are completely amoral. Keep your little secret. I don't care who you were with last night. I don't even care if you slept with them. I don't care if you talked all night. And you're right. Who knows when we'll see each other again? Maybe we should just pretend we've never met. Maybe it's time to start pretending right now." I walked away.

"Kent... Don't go."

"Tony, have you got your shit together?"

Tony was standing by the door, goggle-eyed. "Yeah, Kent. All ready to go. But what about your tent and stuff?"

I'd forgotten all about my tent. I'd meant to pack it up once I got up but Tony was still sleeping. And now I just wanted to get the hell out of camp.

I looked back. Lucy hadn't moved from the breakfast table. She looked distraught, but she hadn't actually moved. She still held her coffee up near her face. I continued through the door. Tony followed.

I went straight to my tent. I untied the tarp and flung it onto the path. It got a bit tangled in the brush on either side but I ignored it. I opened the tent and threw everything I could find of Lucy's out the door. I left all of my own stuff inside. I zipped up the tent and collapsed it. Tony stayed on the other side of the tarp and watched as I pulled up the tent pegs and removed the fibreglass supports from their sleeves. I pulled the tarp forward overtop of Lucy's stuff and dragged the tent and its contents onto the tarp. I wrapped the whole mess up in the tarp and hoisted it onto my shoulder. Tony started picking up Lucy's clothes. "Leave them," I said. I turned and walked down the path, dragging my load through the branches on either side.

At the truck Brendan helped Tony and I pack our gear and some bags of garbage around the quad.

"It's none of my business, but maybe you should give Lucy another chance," said Brendan. "You know what party nights are like. Everything will probably work out all right. Don't take it too seriously."

I didn't say anything. I just tightened up the ratchet strap on my side and got into the truck.

Tony waved to grab Brendan's attention. "Don't worry about him," he said. "He gets this way sometimes. Strong silent type. You know the kind. I'll talk to him."

"Well, have a good trip." He shook Tony's hand and then said to me, "And Kent, give me a call when you get to town."

I nodded. Tony got in the truck. I started driving as soon as he shut the door.

The road was much drier but still slightly slick. I drove angry and the truck slithered around on the road.

I could tell I was making Tony nervous. "Maybe we should stop for a couple of minutes," he said.

"Not yet. In a while." I wanted to make sure I was well and truly out of camp.

After a couple of miles we came up to the bridge. On this side of the river the road curved down and then up as it approached the bridge. As soon as we started going around the curve I could see it was gone. It had washed away during the night. I kicked down hard on the brake pedal. The truck skidded into the ditch. Without taking my foot off the brake, I yanked the transmission into four wheel drive, then got off the brakes and onto the gas. The truck bounced through the ditch and up on to the other side. Tony hit the ceiling of the cab. I turned the wheel and the truck bounced through the ditch again and it managed to crawl out on to the road. When I stopped, it was almost perfectly sideways in the middle of the road.

>> Farts Like Gold: 50

"Cheese balls and scotch go surprisingly well together," said Cassie. "I wonder if there's a recipe there. Cheeseball and scotch pie, maybe. My aunt makes a chocolate and Guinness cake that is yum yum yummy. Best cake I ever had. I should really get the recipe off of her."

"Sounds like it should be a hit. Chocolate and booze. Aren't they two of the three deadly sins you mentioned?"

She shook her head. "Chocolate and cigarettes. Although, I guess technically they're not sins. They're vices. The sin is lusting after chocolate and cigarettes. Lust is a sin. Chocolate is a vice. Mix them up and you end up with lice." She sang this last part softly to herself.

"You are one enigmatic cook," I said.

She sat up and gave me a firm, disapproving look. "I think you'll find it's pronounced 'kook'," she said.

I laughed.

Cassandra smiled and settled back down against the seat.

The windows were beginning to steam up. I started the truck so I could turn on the heater.

Cassandra reached out and touched my arm. "Don't do that," she said.

"Aren't you cold?"

"I don't want to get too comfortable. I might fall asleep." she said. "And I like the quiet."

I switched the truck off and used my sleeve to wipe the condensation off the windshield in front of me. Then I leaned over and did the same for Cassie. I'm not sure why I bothered, really. There was nothing to see.

We sat there for a while without saying anything. I was tempted to stretch out an arm and try to get a bit closer to Cassie for warmth. But the bottle of whiskey in my lap reminded me I might be drunk. And the truck itself reminded me I would be leaving camp the next day. Instead I just told Cassie I was tired and was I was going to bed.

We got out of the truck and she walked with me to the dining tent.

"Good night, Kent. Sleep well. Don't let the bedbugs bite."

"You too." I held the flap of the tent open for her to walk through and made a final check to see if Lucy was there. She wasn't.

The concert in the dry shack had broken up but it was still a much quieter crowd than the one in the dining tent. Tony was teaching Kathy how to play something on his bass. Everyone else was sitting around the wood stove talking in twos and threes. No Lucy.

Back in my tent I suddenly felt exhausted. I fell asleep almost immediately.

Tony showed up a couple of hours later. I woke up when he undid the zipper on the door of the tent.

"Kent!" he whispered. "You awake? What a fantastic night! I mean, I've been to some pretty amazing parties, but never one like that. Everyone was so friendly. I think they really dug my bass playing. I taught Kathy some riffs. She's a fantastic girl, that Kathy."

I rolled over and put my hand on his shoulder to stop him from coming into the tent with his boots on. He shined the flashlight in my face. I squinted.

"Boots," I said. "Mud." I was still somewhat bleary-brained and incapable of full sentences.

"Oh right." Halfway into the tent, he dropped onto his belly and kicked his boots off while lying on his front. His flashlight shone on some of Lucy's clothes. "Hey!" he said. "You've got women's underpants in your tent. Are those for the gown plant?"

"A friend's," I said. "Get in. You're letting the mosquitos in."

"Right," he said. "Don't want to let the bedbugs bite."

Tony crawled into the tent and zipped the door closed. I drifted off as he nattered to himself and killed mosquitos.

I woke up around 8 the next morning. I put my clothes in a heap by the door and climbed carefully over Tony. I dressed outside, standing on the sides of Tony's boots until I got my own on.

It had stopped raining. There was even a hint of a blue sky to the west. A half a dozen early risers were in the dining tent. April and Joe were sitting by the wood stove. I poured myself a coffee and a bowl of cereal and joined them.

"How'd you sleep?" asked April.

"Not bad," I said. "You?"

"Pretty good, thanks."

That was about it for conversation. After I finished my coffee, Joe and I went outside to unload the truck. We yanked on the tarp in a few places to drain the water that had pooled on top of it. Then we folded the tarp up like a bedsheet on top of the quad. There were some other bits and bobs that Gord and Virginia had sent up with Tony and me. We unloaded these and put them away.

The quad was strapped down with a number of ratchet straps. After we undid these, we pulled the ramps out and leaned them against the tailgate. Brendan showed up as Joe was riding the quad off the truck.

"Hey," Brendan said. "I didn't expect to see you here this morning. Brought the quad up, did you?"

"Yes," I said. "Got into camp late last night."

"That's great. Really great," he said. "Must have been after I went to bed." He helped me slide the ramps back into the truck.

"How are you feeling?" I asked.

"Me," said Brendan. "Oh fine. Best hangover after a night off I've ever had."

"Maybe because you went to bed so early," I said.

"Yeah, that must be it," he said. He closed the tailgate of the truck. "So, what are you plans? Are you staying in camp for a few days?"

"No. We're leaving today. Gord wants the dead quad back as soon as possible. I'm sure I can stay and help out for a bit today if you need it."

"No, that's fine," said Brendan. "I'm sure we can round up some help if we need to. You're right. We should get the other quad back down to Gord. Who knows when some bonehead is going to wreck another one." He grinned awkwardly and stepped away from the truck.

I got in and backed the pumpkin up to the flatbed with the dead quad on it. Brendan guided me. Joe flipped down the tailgate when I was close. Then I nudged the two trucks together. I stayed in the truck while Brendan and Joe dragged the quad over into the pumpkin and strapped it down. When they were done, they jumped down and I drove forward to allow Joe to close the tailgate.

Tony was just putting his boots on when Lucy showed up at my tent. She gave a little shriek and stopped suddenly when she saw him.

"Hi there," said Tony.

"Hi," said Lucy. She was still wearing the dress from the night before.

"Looking for Kent?" he asked.

"No. I mean, yes. I mean, I just came to get some clothes."

"Ah, you must be Kent's friend. I'm Kent's friend, too," he said. "My name's Tony." He stood up and offered her his hand.

Lucy smiled and shook it. "Pleased to meet you." She stepped around him and swivelled into the tent. "Is Kent here?" she asked. "Do you know when he got into camp?" She pulled the jeans on under the dress while she talked.

"We got in last night. The party was in full swing. Were you at the party? That's a great dress, by the way. I can't believe I didn't notice you if you were wearing that dress."

"Well, it's the last anybody will see of this dress for a while," said Lucy. She wriggled around and began to pull it over her head. Tony was too surprised to turn away. "Where is he now?" she asked as she tossed the dress into the back of the tent.

"What? Who? Kent?" said Tony. "Don't know. He slept beside me but he wasn't here when I got up. That is, when I say he slept beside me -- I mean he slept beside me, if you know what I mean. I mean we didn't sleep together. We're not that kind of friends."

"I know what you mean." Lucy put on a tee shirt and a sweatshirt. "Kent and I are those kind of friends. Or at least we were. This is bad timing, that's what this is."

"What?"

"Nothing," she said. "Ready to go?" She asked. She held her hand out for Tony to help her up.

>> Farts Like Gold: 49

Lucy wasn't in the dining tent. Neither was Tony. In general, it seemed that the party had thinned out quite a bit. There wasn't anyone there I felt like talking to. I pulled a bottle of Scotch out of my office box and used a drizzle of it to rinse out an abandoned mug. I took the bottle and the mug with me and stepped out into the night.

The dryshack was crowded but oddly quiet. About a dozen people were huddled around Tony who seemed to be playing something on his bass. It was an electric bass and he didn't have an amp. I couldn't hear anything from where I was just inside tent. Lucy wasn't in the crowd.

I moved forward to just behind the circle of people listening to Tony. I still couldn't hear much but at least I could see his fingers move. Somehow that helped fill in the music. Everyone was chilled out and focussed on the quiet, oddly tinny bass licks Tony played. I stood behind them for a while, but there wasn't anything even vaguely comfortable left to sit on and so I left.

It wasn't raining any more but the wind regularly knocked sprays of wetness off the trees that towered above the far side of the shack. I didn't want to go back to the dining tent and to go back to my own tent would be to admit defeat. I walked alongside the dining tent. It glowed yellow in the darkness. The truck that Tony and I had driven up in was parked beside the cookbus. I put my mug and the Scotch bottle on the hood of the truck and leaned against the bumper. I was far enough away from the dining tent and dryshack for it to be properly dark. I leaned back and looked up. I couldn't see any stars but I could make out the silhouette of the treetops against the moon-washed clouds.

The folding door of the cookbus creaked open. Cassandra stood on the bottom step. "You lurking around my kitchen, again?" she said.

"Just enjoying the break in the rain," I said.

She poked her head out the door of the bus and looked up. "Any stars, yet?" she asked.

"Not yet, but I live in hope."

Cassandra swung down into the mud outside the bus. She walked over and leaned against the truck beside me. She looked up at the sky. "Hope's a good thing to have sometimes but it won't bake a pie."

I thought about what she said for a minute. "That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever," I said.

"Yeah, well, mystery, thy name is me, I guess," she said. "It's freezing out here. Let's go back inside." She pushed herself off the truck and waited for me.

I didn't move. "I'm not really in a party mood," I said.

She stood there for a minute, then said, "Well, what about the truck, then?"

"Yeah, why not. Tony probably stashed some cheese balls behind the seat for an emergency."

I got in the driver's side. Cassandra got in the passenger side. I was right about the cheese balls. There was a bag behind the seat. Cassie leaned forward while I pulled the seat down and fished them out. We drank scotch from my mug and shared them.

>> Farts Like Gold: 48

There was a lull in the rain. I took the opportunity to drag Tony away from the party. We went back to the truck. I untied the tarp and peeled it back. I grabbed my bag. Tony took one of his suitcases. He followed as I led the way to the tent. Tony put his suitcase on a patch of dry ground under my tarp. I unzipped the door of the tent and knelt just outside as I rearranged things to try to make some more room for us. I moved Lucy thermarest and mine a little further apart. Our two sleeping bags were zipped together to make one. I shoved these onto the far thermarest and asked Tony for his sleeping bag. He got fished it out of his suitcase and passed it over. He sat back down on the suitcase. I lay his bag out on Lucy's thermarest and arranged a couple of pillows for us.

"This tarp is great," said Tony. "Sure gives you a lot more space. Do you ever just sleep outside of the tent under the tarp?"

I swiveled around and sat inside the tent. "No," I said. I started taking off my boots.

"Why not?"

"It's warmer in the tent. And drier. And there are no bugs. That's the main reason, I guess. No mosquitoes. And you're less likely to get eaten by a bear." I scooted backwards into the tent. "Coming in?"

Tony stayed sitting on the suitcase. He ran his hand over his wet hair and wiped it on his jeans.

"I was thinking I might go back to the party," he said.

"Oh, yeah," I said. "Sure. Go ahead." I was sitting crosslegged just inside the tent. I rummaged around in one of the side pockets and found a flashlight. "Here take this. It'll help you find the tent again."

"Thanks," said Tony. "Why don't you come with me? Maybe your friend Lucy will show up."

"Thanks, but I think I'll just get an early night," I said. "I'm sure I'll see her tomorrow."

"All right," he said. "I promise I won't stay up to late." He turned the flashlight on and headed back towards the party.

The truth was that I wasn't sure I wanted to see Lucy tonight - at least not any more. On the drive up I had a mental image in my head of arriving at camp. She'd come running up, a smoke in one hand, and a beer in the other. She'd throw her arms around me and ask me about my hand. We'd talk and laugh and then we'd sneak off to my tent together. This same tent that I was now in alone.

It was probably no big deal but the fact that I couldn't find her weirded me out. I was half worried something bad had happened to her and half worried that she'd hooked up with somebody else. And maybe it was cowardice but I didn't want to be the one to find either of those things out. Plus, I knew that if she did turn up now, even if she had just been off talking to somebody and everything was all kosher and innocent, I'd still act like a basket case. And that would be fine if it was just the two of us alone, but in the middle of the party I'd feel like an idiot.

And besides, if she did come back to the party, somebody would tell her I was here and she'd know where to find me.

Why the Hell did I offer to let Tony sleep here? What if she does show up tonight? Really, it's far more likely she'd sleep in her own sleeping bag than she'd bunk down with a friend. I am such an idiot.

I lay in my sleeping bag for about an hour, trying not to think about where Lucy might be and trying to figure out what I'd do if both Tony and Lucy showed up tonight. I kept telling myself I was being an idiot and she was probably back at the party right now having a good time and I was lying here like a moody idiot.

I realised I might as well get up and check. I wasn't getting any sleep anyway and, after all, it was a party night. If she was there, then that might be weird. If she wasn't there, well, that might be weird too. But it was definitely weird that I was lying in my tent wide awake when there was a party going on.

>> Farts Like Gold: 47

We left Cassandra alone in the cookbus. We walked down the steps into the dining tent. Each of us carried at least one bowl of junk food. We were greeted like conquering heroes. Willing volunteers relieved of us of our bowls of goodies almost immediately. It felt good to be back in camp. It was great to see everyone again. Tony was agog.

"Does everyone dress like this every time you have a party?" he asked.

At least that's what I assumed he was asking me. It was pretty loud where we were, on the edge of the impromptu dance floor about 3 metres from the ghetto blaster.

"Gown plant!" I shouted.

"What?" he asked.

"Ask Kathy," I said. I tapped her on the shoulder and pointed at Tony. "Explain the clothes!" I said. She nodded and grabbed his arm. They made their way further into the tent away from the noise. I stepped back up on the steps to survey the crowd. I was keen to find Lucy. I couldn't spot her anywhere in the crowd. Paul brought me a mug of punch.

"It's got beetroot in it," he said.

"Cool! Have you seen Lucy?" I asked.

"Haven't seen her lately," he said. "I think she and Kathy and Brendan were going to read a book or something. Forget about her. Drink the punch."

I drank some of the punch. It wasn't bad. It had kind of a weird, earthy taste. Paul refilled my mug from a pitcher he carried. I wormed my way through the crowd. Everyone asked about my hand and how town was. If I'd seen any movies. If I'd brought any newspapers with me. No one could tell me where Lucy was.

Just because there's a party, doesn't mean everyone's in a partying mood. Some people had probably gone to bed. Lucy's wasn't the only face that seemed to be missing. Brendan and Joe weren't there either. I wasn't too surprised about Joe. He tended to be an early to bed kind of guy and there was a good chance he and Brendan had a full work schedule tomorrow. I was surprised Brendan wasn't up though. He was usually a big one for parties. Lucy, too, come to think of it. But then maybe she missed me more than I thought she would. Maybe she'd gone to bed.

I checked my tent first. She wasn't there. Then I checked her tent. Not there either. It looked like she was using her tent as kind of a crawl-in closet. There were clothes strewn all around inside it. It didn't look like she was sleeping there. My tent held both our thermarests and sleeping bags. No Lucy though.

I went back to the party. I peeked in the dry shack. Alistair and Cameron and Amber were in there. They were laughing and there was a heavy smell of dope in the air. No Lucy.

I caught up with Tony and Kathy in the dining tent. Tony was explaining his recent career change from office guy to rock and roller. "You have to understand, it's a completely different lifestyle," he told her. "Before, I had to be in the office by 9 every morning. I did the same thing every day. Now that I'm a musician, the work is much more eclectic. Earlier today I was unloading a truck in the rain. Who knows what I'll be doing tomorrow. It's a much more organic, artistic way of life. It's a bit like being in the circus."

Tony now had on the bra that Kathy had been wearing over top of her shirt. He had stuffed it with a pair of oranges. One had become lost somewhere along the way.

"Hey, Kathy," I said. "Do you have any idea what happened to Lucy? I can't seem to find her anywhere."

"No," she said. "Are you sure she didn't just go to bed?"

"Well, she was sleeping in my tent. She's not there now."

"Don't know, then. Sorry," she said.

"Paul mentioned something about a book," I said.

"Oh yeah! He made this killer punch. It had beetroot in it. So we got to talking about the book Jitterbug Perfume. It's got beetroot in it as well," Kathy looked down and scraped a dried clump of mud off of her skirt. "We were all going to read it together, but I got distracted or something. She's probably just reading the book somewhere. Maybe she's having a pajama party with Amber or Nicole. I wouldn't worry about it."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. She'll turn up. I should have let her know I was coming." I sat down on the bench beside Tony. "Listen, Tony," I said. "It looks like I've got some extra space in my tent. Rather than setting up your tent in the rain in the dark, do you want to bunk with me tonight?"

"Oh, Man!" he said. "That would be great. We can have our own little pajama party. Can Kathy sleep with us too?"

Kathy laughed. I shook my head. "I don't think so," I said. "The tent's not that big. If Lucy does show up tonight, it's going to be hard enough to explain you, never mind the ever-sexy Kathleen-jellybean."

>> Farts Like Gold: 46

I yanked open the door of the cookbus and went inside. I held a plastic bag of goodies from the truckstop above my head with my left hand.

"I'm back!" I said. "And I come bearing gifts!"

Cassie, April, Kathy, Matt, and Paul were in the cookbus. They stood at the far end of the bus just past the stoves. Tony stood behind me.

Kathy was sitting on the freezer. She hopped onto the floor and ran up and gave me a hug. "Goddamnit, you smell good!" she said. She stepped back and looked over my shoulder.

"Hey! Fresh blood!" She reached around me to offer a handshake to Tony. "I'm Kathy," she said.

He shook her hand and stared at the bra she wore over her shirt. "I'm Tony," he said to her breasts.

I stepped around Kathy and joined the rest of the group. April kissed me on the cheek. "Welcome back," she said.

Cassie stood in front of me for a moment. She took one step forward and put her arms around me. She pressed her face into my neck and stayed there for a couple of beats. Then she stepped back, leaving her hands on my shoulders. "I'm just a wee bit drunk," she said carefully.

Matt and Paul thought this was hilarious. They whooped and started slamdancing off each other and off of the counters and ceiling of the bus. April looked at Cassie. Cassie leaned back against the counter and nodded to herself. "I'm drunk," she said.

April grabbed Paul. He stopped. "Chill," she said. "No dancing in the kitchen."

Matt crashed into Paul. Paul stumbled a bit. He turned around. "No dancing in the kitchen," he said.

"I NEED to dance," said Matt. He held his hands up apologetically and backed up, dancing towards the exit.

Paul turned back to April. "Logically, then, we need to leave the kitchen," he said.

Matt half-danced, half fell down the steps out of the bus into the dining tent. Paul followed. He stopped on the steps outside the bus and announced, "There will be no dancing in the kitchen tonight!"

The crowd in the dining tent cheered. I doubt that anyone could have made out what he actually said, but when you're in a party mood, it's easier to cheer an announcement than to stop and ask questions.

"You picked a good night to come back," said April. "How's your hand?"

I placed my plastic bags of goodies on the counter.

"Hey, yeah -- gifts," said Cassandra. "What did you bring me?"

Kathy shrieked. "Chocolate! I bet you've got chocolate!" She came skipping up to us. "Please, please, please can I have some?"

"Tony has the chocolate," I said. "I've got crappy magazines and tobacco."

"The three deadly sins," said Cassandra. "Chocolate, smokes, and the National Enquirer." She peered into the bag. "Still, three out of seven isn't bad. There are worse sins."

"How's your hand?" April asked again.

"Oh, right," I said. "Not bad. It's not a hundred percent, but I'm not totally useless." I gestured at the bags of goodies. "See, I can still shop."

Cassie pulled a magazine out of the bag. It was a Cosmopolitan. She stared at the cover. "Glossy," she said. "Glossy, glossy, glossy. The glossy girls get all the guys."

Tony started removing junk food from his bags. He placed each item carefully on the freezer. As each one was revealed, Kathy bounced up and down with excitement.

"I hadn't really thought of chocolate as sinful," said Tony. "Kent told me how the food here was so great and how good the cooks were. Are you girls all cooks?" he asked. "I hope you're not upset that I brought crappy junk food into camp. From what Kent said, I thought it would be a nice change."

"I'm not a cook," said Kathy. "I don't cook anything. I eat. I eat a lot. I especially like eating chocolate."

"Don't worry about it," said April. "Cassie and I are the cooks for the camp. I don't think she was serious about chocolate being a sin."

"Oh, right," I said. "This is Tony. Tony, this is April and Cassandra. And you've met Kathy."

"It is a rare pleasure to meet you both," said Tony. "I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to breakfast tomorrow. Not that I'm hungry right now or anything. I just hear your breakfasts are amazing. Will there be breakfast burritos tomorrow? Kent was telling me about breakfast burritos. They sound fantastic."

I put my hand on Tony's shoulder. "Listen," I said. "It's great to be back, but I think I might go join the party and see if I can find Lucy. Come on, Tony. I'll find you a drink."

Cassie put the magazine down. "We've got drinks here," she said. "I should have offered before. Beer or Bailey's?"

"Thanks, but I should really go say hi to everyone else. Why don't you come down with us?"

Cassandra picked up the magazine again. "Maybe later. I've got to catch up on my celebrity gossip."

April started putting Tony's junk food into bowls "I'll come with you," she said. "I spend enough time in this kitchen as it is."

>> Farts Like Gold: 45

We'd been driving in a grey tunnel of rain and gravel and darkness for the last hour. The rain was so heavy it was almost like snow. I turned the high beams off. They lit up the rain and made it difficult to focus on anything else. The road was in terrible shape. It was hard to believe it was the same road I'd driven down just a few days ago. Even with the truck in four wheel drive, I had to keep it in the centre of the road so it wouldn't slide into the ditch.

Tony seemed to love it. "This rain is fantastic! Are you sure we're going the right way? When do we get there?"

Whenever it got really hairy, he jumped up and down in his seat. "We're driving sideways! Holy shit! Are you sure this thing has four wheel drive? How'd you keep it on the road? You can't see anything. Maybe we're not even on the road. There's a river in the middle of the road. I don't know much about engineering but that doesn't seem right. Shouldn't there be better drainage?"

I just kept going forward. I was pretty sure no one else was going to be crazy enough to be on this road tonight and there was no safe place to turn around anyway.

Tony was still bouncing in his seat when I turned on to the side road that took us towards camp. "Almost there," I said. "Maybe ten more miles."

"Fantastic!" said Tony.

The road curved down towards a creek. The truck started to slide again. I knew if I hit the brakes we would just go into the ditch so I gave it a little bit of gas and kept it turned into the skid. We slithered a long slow ess down and then up towards a one lane wooden bridge. I suddenly had a sick feeling that there wouldn't be a bridge there. The approach to the bridge was slightly lower than the bridge itself. You couldn't actually see the deck of the bridge until you were almost on it. But it was all right. The bridge was there.

We slithered onto it at a slight angle. "No worries," I said.

"Holy Shit!" said Tony. "Look at that!"

I was looking down the length of the bridge, the way that I wanted the truck to go. The truck itself was pointed slightly off to the side. This meant the headlights were also pointed off to the side, and this is where Tony was looking.

I glanced in the direction of the headlights. They shone on whitewater that was maybe a metre below the bridge. The creek was now a river. Fallen trees and brush were trapped against the bridge supports. As the truck straightened out, I gunned the engine.

"I can't believe how small this bridge is," said Tony. "Who would make a bridge this small for a river like that? It's madness."

We made it across the bridge. There was no point looking behind us. There was nothing but blackness back there.

A few minutes later we pulled into camp. The dining tent was lit up from within with a warm yellow glow. We could hear music and laughter even over the rain.

"Wow!" said Tony. "It's beautiful!"

I pulled the truck up beside the front of the cookbus. I honked the horn a couple of times. Tony and I grabbed the bags of loot from the convenience store. I got out of the truck and ran to the door of the cookbus. Tony followed.

>> Farts Like Gold: 44

Lucy stopped reading. She shuffled around and knelt up inside the tent. "I'm cold," she said.

Brendan watched as she yanked one side of the sleeping bag from beneath her knees. She lay down again -- this time a little closer so her legs touched his along their full length. She flung the sleeping bag over the two of them. Brendan pulled on it as she wriggled to free enough to cover the two of them.

Her left arm was now against his chest. She propped the book up on his right hand. She turned her head and rested her cheek on the open pages of the book. "Isn't that better," she said. Their faces were so close he could feel the her breath when she spoke.

"Well, I'm definitely not as cold," he said. "How about you?"

"Much warmer, thanks," she wriggled around in the sleeping bag so she was on her side. Her cheek stayed resting on the book that was propped up on Brendan's left hand. Her hands were now just below his chin. With his right hand he reached up and held both of Lucy's hands in his. She straightened her left index finger and traced a short slow line along the bottom of his jaw.

As her finger left his skin, Brendan tilted his head down to follow it. He pulled Lucy's hands up to his mouth and kissed the finger that had grazed his chin. He looked into her eyes for the first time since they entered the tent. He rolled forward and kissed her on the mouth.

It was a brief kiss, a careful kiss. Lucy smiled. She moved forward slightly and they kissed again. Their kisses became less brief and less careful. They paused once to close Kathy's book and toss it in a corner of the tent. And paused again to rearrange the sleeping bag and pillow and put out the light.

They were now completely intertwined. Limbs, lips and hair were all mixed up in the close confines of the sleeping bag. A strand of Lucy's hair found its way into Brendan's nose. It tickled him and he yanked his head back and sneezed. Lucy laughed.

He rolled onto his back. "That's it," he said. "From now on I'm only going to bed with bald women."

>> Farts Like Gold: 43

Lucy put on Brendan's coat and they ducked out into the rain. Brendan led the way. They both ran with a wide, slightly staggering stance to maintain their balance in the mud, their arms out by their sides. Once they got to the woods, Brendan pulled out a flashlight and they slowed to a fast walk.

Inside the tent, he shoved all his loose clothes, dirty and clean, into a duffle bag and pushed it against one side of the tent. He lay down, propped up on one elbow and leaned back against it. He watched Lucy as she left his jacket on a stump outside the tent, took her boots off and swivelled into the tent. Once she was inside, he leaned forward and reached across her legs to pull the zipper closed.

His tent was a standard 3 person dome tent, about the same size and shape as almost everyone else's in camp. The roof of the tent was maybe a metre and a half at the highest point. One end of the tent was slightly higher than the other. This was where his pillow was. Above this hung a small dirty-white mesh bag. He put the flashlight in the bag. It created a soft diffuse light. It was enough to see by - enough to read by if you were directly below it.

Lucy pulled the book from inside her shirt where she'd been protecting it from the rain. She flopped down on Brendan's sleeping bag, and wriggled around until she was comfortable and the book was mostly in the light. There wasn't much room in the tent. Brendan leaned backwards against the duffle bag at right angles to her with his legs bridged over her back.

"Ready," she asked.

"Ready," he replied.

Lucy began to read.

"Page one. Today's Special. The beet is the most intense of vegetables."

The rain drumming on the tarp made it difficult for him to hear her. Brendan shuffled around on his back until his head was closer to hers. In this position he found he couldn't keep his legs bridged over her back without touching her. And that made it impossible to listen properly. After some more shuffling, he ended up lying on his side beside her. He rested his head on his forearm. His gaze naturally pointed down the length of her body. He could make out the soft hills of her buttocks rising out of the folds of the sleeping bag. This made it even more difficult to concentrate, so he shifted a bit so his focus was higher. Now his eyes rested on her waist. The dress she was wearing emphasised the curves of her lower back. There was a rip in the dress just above where her waist met her hip. Through the rip he could glimpse a tiny savannah of flesh.

Everywhere he looked was too sexy for clear thought. He was sure she knew why he kept looking around the tent. He forced himself to stare at her face as she read. He could tell she was conscious of this as well. Too late he realised he should have just kept his eyes on the flashlight hanging from roof of the tent, but now he was mesmerised. The only sensible place to look when you are staring at the face of someone reading is their mouth. He knew now he was doomed. At some point he would have to kiss that mouth.

>> Farts Like Gold: 42

"There's an awful lot of narration in this book," said Lucy. Brendan moved closer and looked down at the pages. It seemed natural for him to put his arm around her waist so he could get close enough to read the book.

"Not much dialogue," she said. "At least in the beginning. Maybe we should just take turns reading aloud."

"You first," said Brendan.

Lucy read silently a bit, then said, "I don't mind reading, but I doubt you'd hear me in here."

"Are you suggesting we go somewhere quieter," asked Brendan.

"That's kind of what I was thinking, yes."

"Like one of our tents, maybe?"

"Like your tent, specifically," said Lucy. "Mine's too small and all of my stuff is in Kent's."

"Ah, yes," said Brendan. "I'd feel a bit weird reading about beets in Kent's tent." He shifted slightly away from Lucy and pulled his arm from around her waist.

"It's just a bedtime story," said Lucy. "It's no big deal. I just feel like getting away from the noise for awhile."

Brendan looked at her. He looked at her eyes. He looked at her mouth. "It would be nice to get away from this madness for a bit," he said. "But what about Kathy? It's her book."

"I'm sure she'll want to stay with the party," said Lucy. "I think she'll be fine with it."

"All right," said Brendan. "Let's go read about beets."

They both stood up. Brendan could see Kathy down at the other end of the cookshack. She was in deep in conversation with a man wearing a striped purple mini-dress. He couldn't tell who it was.

Lucy picked up Brendan's rain jacket. "Do you mind?" she asked.

Brendan shrugged. "No problem," he said.

>> Farts Like Gold: 41

"It's probably the beets," said Brendan.

"What?" said Lucy.

"You know. Tom Robbins. Beets. Love potions," he said.

Lucy shook her head. "You've lost me." She took another sip of the punch.

"Tom Robbins wrote a novel that talked a lot about perfume and beets and love potions."

"Jitterbug Perfume. I've got a copy of it in my tent," said Kathy. "It's brilliant!"

Lucy turned sideways on the bench. She brought her leg up so it lay with the length of her shin against his thigh. "You read a book about perfume?" she said.

"Well, it's not really about perfume," said Brendan. "I mean it is. But it's a novel. It's not a textbook or a history of the science of perfume. It's a novel and it just happens to be about perfume and beets. It's quirky. You'd love it. It talks about beets and how they are a crucial ingredient for love potions."

"Sounds like it would go great with the punch," said Lucy.

Kathy threw her arms up in the air. "We should have a reading!" she said. "A dramatic reading. We can all read different parts. It'll be fantastic! It'll be just like karaoke and charades combined!"

"Oh my God," said Brendan. "I can't think of anything worse than karaoke and charades - especially if combined with a punch made of beets and booze. Look, I just want to sit here and drink Scotch and worry about the contract."

"I'll give it a try," said Lucy.

"Perfect!" said Kathy. "I'll go get it." She disappeared into the crowd.

Brendan sighed.

"Come on," said Lucy. "It will be fun. It's party night. You need to relax. Turn around. I'll do your shoulders." She put her mug down and swung her leg onto the ground so she straddled the bench.

Brendan shrugged. "Never could refuse a backrub," he said. He turned to face away from her. Joe shifted over and started clearing up as he did so. He pulled all the map photocopies into a couple of piles. He put these in his office box and rolled up the other two big maps. He put rubber bands around these and pushed them to the edge of the table near the tent wall.

"Think I'll go for a wander," said Joe.

"No worries." As Joe got up, Brendan straightened out his right leg along the bench where he had been sitting. Lucy began massaging Brendan's upper back.

"It feels like you have boulders in your shoulders," she said.

"Oh my God," he said. "That rhymes. Please tell me the karaoke hasn't started already?"

"Not yet," she said. She pressed both of her thumbs on a bulbous lump of clenched muscle in Brendan's back. She moved them in a slow rotating motion from the centre outwards, pushing into his back as hard as she could. Brendan groaned. His dropped his hands to his sides to try to loosen up his arms and shoulders. They fell on either side of Lucy's knees. She worked the knot for a few more minutes then spread her hands out and gently kneaded his shoulders again. She found another knot and pressed down on this one a little too hard. Brendan sat up a bit and involuntarily clenched Lucy's thighs with his hands.

"Sorry," she said. "Was that too hard?"

"No, it's good," he said. He settled back down on the bench. He left his hands where they were and, after a while, casually began massaging Lucy's knees. She ran her hands down the sides of his back and then up along the centre of his back, pressing the flesh from his spine out to the sides.

They stayed there like that with the party swirling around them for about ten minutes -- Lucy massaged Brendan's back and Brendan massaged Lucy's thighs. They stopped when Kathy showed up with the book.

"I've got it!" she said. Kathy sat down on the other side of the table. Brendan swung around to face her. Lucy let her hands drift away from his back.

"Thanks," he said to Lucy. "That felt fantastic."

"No problem," she said. "But you owe me one"

Brendan nodded. "More Scotch?" he asked.

"You can't have Scotch," said Kathy. "We need to drink the love potion. Here, have a quick skim through the pages." The book was a battered paperbook with a purple cover. It was titled 'Jitterbug Perfume' by Tom Robbins. She handed it to Lucy. Lucy opened the book and Kathy got up and went in search of the punchbowl.

>> Farts Like Gold: 40

The office table was covered by two huge maps of the area printed in blue ink. Joe and Brendan had made notes about access on them in red. Both were creased and filthy. On top of these were photocopies of maps of five of the individual cutblocks. Joe and Brendan sat beside each other facing away from the party. They were copying information onto the maps about how many boxes of trees they planned to put in each block and where they planned to put the caches. The bottle of Scotch and two mugs were on the table in front of them.

Lucy sat down on the bench next to Brendan. "Wow, you guys really know how to party." She leaned forward and put one elbow on the table, resting her cheek on her fist. Her eyes glanced at the bottle of Scotch. "Any chance either of you boys might buy a girl a drink?"

"Help yourself," said Brendan. "I think we're pretty much done working for tonight." He looked over at Joe. Joe shrugged but kept copying numbers on to maps.

Lucy put a mug on the table and poured herself some Scotch. She held the bottle over one of the other mugs. Both Joe and Brendan nodded. Lucy splashed some Scotch into each of the mugs and put the cork back in the bottle.

Matt and Paul sat down on the other side of the office table. Paul had a large mixing bowl full of punch with him. He put it in the middle of the table. Matt took a mug, dipped in the punch and set it down in front of Brendan.

"Yo!" said Matt. "Oh great one. He that is all that is noble and righteous. We ask that you pass judgement on this drink."

Paul elbowed him in the side. "Beseech!" he shouted. "Not ask."

"Right," said Matt. "We beseech you to..."

"Try this drink," said Paul. "It's fan-fucking-tastic. Don't ask what's in it. Just trust us."

Matt looked at Paul. "He's got to know what's in it," said Matt. "Otherwise he won't understand the genius of it."

"We'll tell him afterward," replied Paul. He nudged the mug a little closer to Brendan. Some of it spilled on one of the maps. It was red in colour.

Brendan shook his head. "I don't know, fellahs. Lucy's just poured me some Scotch and Joe and I have got work to do. It would be inconvenient if I was blind and or puking."

"Well, what about that?" Matt indicated the bottle of Scotch. "That's just as poisonous as this is."

"More poisonous," said Paul. "Ours is diluted."

"What's in it?" asked Brendan.

Matt and Paul looked at each other. "Healthy stuff," said Paul.

"Fruit." said Matt. "Fruit and fruit juice."

"And some vegetables," said Paul.

"And booze," said Matt.

"But not many vegetables," said Paul. "We put in some beet juice as there seemed to be a certain reluctance regarding the consumption of cranberry juice and we thought camouflaging the colour might make people forget about the cranberry juice. Oh, and some carrots."

"But no potatoes," said Matt. "We discussed it but decided two root vegetables was enough."

"It's basically a smoothie," said Paul.

"But with booze added to it," said Matt. "So maybe more like a daiquiri than a smoothie." Paul nodded and grinned.

Lucy leaned across in front of Brendan and sniffed the concoction. Her hair brushed against his chin. "Smells all right," she said. "I think you should try it."

Brendan picked up the mug and smelled it himself. "Smells mostly like cranberry juice. What booze did you put in it?"

Matt counted them off on his fingers. "Rum, Vodka, Tequila, Rye, and a bit more Rum. Mostly rum, actually."

"And a little bit of beer," added Paul. "But that was by accident."

"Go on," said Lucy. "You know you want to."

"Why me?" asked Brendan.

"You are our leader," said Matt. "We made a vat of the stuff and you need to set an example so the rest of the crew will drink it."

"Thus, the beseeching," said Paul.

"It's for safety," said Matt. "If your worn out old system can take it, then the rest of us will be fine."

Brendan looked around. A number of planters were surrounding the table now. Kathy was one of them.

"I propose a toast," she said. She held her mug above her head. "To Brendan, the bravest foreman in the land."

Everyone near the table raised their mugs. Brendan reluctantly held aloft the cranberry, beet, and rum concoction. "To me," he said and knocked back the contents of the mug.

Everyone laughed and drank.

Brendan put the mug down on the table. He looked puzzled. "That may be the oddest drink I've ever had," he said.

"But damn tasty, don't you think?" said Paul.

"And safe, right?" said Matt.

Brendan stood up and surveyed the group surrounding the table. "I hereby declare the Matt and Paul beet, carrot, and rum drink to be safe for public consumption and not unpleasant tasting. Pour me another!"

The crowd cheered.

Matt and Paul jumped up. "Success!" said Paul. Matt refilled Brendan's mug and the two of them carried the improvised punch bowl into the heart of the party.

Brendan sat down and retrieved his mug of Scotch.

"How was it?" asked Lucy.

Brendan picked up the mug of punch and handed it to her. "Not bad. It's somehow sharp and mellow at the same time. Kind of like if you mixed a bowl of borscht with a pina colada. But I think I'll stick with Scotch."

Lucy sipped the punch. She put the mug down on the table. She turned her head sideways and peered at it on an angle. "It's definitely a little odd-tasting, but I think it could grow on me. It's exactly what a love potion would taste like if there was such a thing as a love potion."

>> Farts Like Gold: 39

The truck showed up about an hour later. Franklin had set up some tarps in the bushes before we got there. Because of the rain, the driver had to keep the truck in the middle of the road. He stayed in the back of the van and handed boxes of trees down to Tony who passed them to me. I passed them to Franklin who arranged them under the tarp. My position required the least amount of manual dexterity but the most amount of wading through mud. The trucker had the best position out of the deal but that was to be expected. Tony continually marvelled that he was actually working in the rain. He kept a running commentary the whole time we worked. I only caught snippets of it whenever we met to exchange boxes.

"...just never really think about rain, you know?" he said and passed a box into my arms.

"...like I'm running in a swimming pool..." - another box.

"...if fish feel like this out of water..."

"...cotton underpants. Oh man! The chaffing is something..."

I just kept working and nodding like I was catching every word. Franklin whistled and grunted and swore but didn't really communicate. Once we unloaded all the trees, the trucker headed off. Tony and I helped Franklin finish arranging the boxes under the tarps. Then Franklin headed back the way we had come and we got back in the pumpkin and headed North.

The work and the cold made my hand throb. It was probably a good thing because it helped keep me awake. Whenever I felt myself drifting off I would just bang my hand on the steering wheel and it would wake me up. Tony still seemed cheerful, but he was definitely more subdued. He seemed endlessly fascinated by the road and the trees and the rain. Every time the truck slewed around in the mud he glanced over to me to see if I was falling asleep.

He perked up a bit when we got to Grande Praire.

"Is this where we stop for supplies?" he asked. "I was beginning to worry."

"If by supplies, you mean drive-through burgers, then this is it," I said. "Although, I suppose we could get some more cheese balls."

"Yay! Cheeseballs!" said Tony.

"But we're not stopping for long. I want to make it to camp tonight."

"Roger that. Burgers. Cheese balls. That's it. That's enough to make me happy. Oh, and can we have some terrible coffee? You can't have a road trip without bad coffee."

We got some burgers at a MacDonald's drive-through and then stopped at a truckstop for coffee and cheeseballs. Tony didn't think the MacDonad's coffee would be bad enough.

"I'm sure it will be terrible," he said. "But it won't be road-trip coffee. You can buy bad MacDonald's coffee anywhere. I want truckstop coffee."

Tony was fast, I'll say that for him. He randomly grabbed two armfuls of junk food and tossed them on the counter. He also bought travel mugs for each of us, which I have to admit I was touched by. I picked up a selection of glossy magazines and a newspaper and a couple of packages of drum tobacco.

We dumped our loot on the seat between us. Tony tied the tops of the shopping bags closed. This time it didn't bother me. I'm not really sure why it did in the first place. Maybe I just needed some road-trip coffee to mellow me out. Tony certainly seemed to be savouring his.

"I'm glad I bought these mugs," he said. "Less spillage. This truck is filthy enough as it is. Plus the mugs keep the heat in. Do they have cups in the camp? Do we need to supply our own dishes?"

"There will be dishes there. It's a good idea to have your own cup though. I don't know why, but we always seem to be short of cups. I guess people leave them lying around. Anyway, we'll only be there for one night."

"Too bad," said Tony. He sipped his coffee and looked out at the rain.

>> Farts Like Gold: 38

"I guess all this rain must be good news for the trees," said Tony.

"Good for the trees, not good for the boxes," said Franklin. "Got anything to eat?"

Tony slapped his forehead. "Damn! We did have some cheese balls. We were planning to save them. You know, in case the truck broke down or we hit a moose or something."

"Yeah," I said. "Tony was figuring on painting the truck with the dust."

Franklin just grunted.

"You know what I think it is?" said Tony. "I think it's boredom. We didn't really need to eat those crisps. Or at least I didn't. It would have been far more sensible to save them for when we were really hungry."

"Or hit that moose," I said.

"Exactly!"

"I don't really like cheese balls," said Franklin. "I do like moose jerky, though."

"No moose jerky," said Tony, "but we do have some epoxy. If you let it set for a bit it would be about the same consistency."

"And probably the same nutritional value," I added.

"Nonsense," said Franklin. "Jerky is good for you. It's meat, isn't it?"

"Well, I guess it's got to be better than cheese balls," I said.

"Moose has only dried up old dead animal in it," said Tony. "Cheese balls have cheese. Everyone knows cheese is good for you. And they've got something else as well. Can't remember what, though."

"Balls?" said Franklin.

"Exactly right," Tony said. "Cheese and balls - cheese balls. Balls must be good for you. They create life."

"This is all irrelevant," I said. "We don't have either. All we've got is epoxy. And why should it matter? We're not hungry anyway."

"I'm hungry," said Franklin.

"Well go kill something then," I said. "You can dry the meat out on the engine block and you'll have all the jerky you want."

>> Farts Like Gold: 37

It was about 5pm when we spotted Franklin's truck. The cheese balls were long since gone.

"We're here," I said. I pulled the pumpkin over. It hadn't been raining in Edmonton but it was bucketing down here. Franklin stepped out of his truck. He slammed the door, then ran over to the pumpkin. He opened the passenger door. Tony scooted over to the middle of the seat. Franklin was well over six feet tall and weighed about 250 pounds. He had a huge moustache with lambchop sideburns. Cassie once described him by saying he looked like a giant caught in the act of sneezing a ferret out of his nose.

"How's it going?" he said.

"Not bad," I said.

"My name's Tony," said Tony. "Kent asked me to help out. Well, actually Virginia did. Well, they both did. Nice to meet you."

"Feeling's mutual," said Franklin.

>> Farts Like Gold: 36

"Road trips," said Tony. "They're great, aren't they? It seems we're always on a road trip together. First the bus, now this. Even that night in the bar was like a road trip. It was like a musical journey of the soul."

I nodded. We had been on the road for about two hours. We still had another four to go to where we were supposed to meet Franklin.

"And we didn't even stop to pee," added Tony.

I thought about it for a moment. "True," I said.

"Although you did spit beer all over the floor," said Tony.

"It was coffee," I said. "It was hot."

"Right... right..." he said. "Because of the narcolepsy."

"What narcolepsy?"

"You were drinking coffee because you were narcoleptic. Remember? You kept falling asleep on the bus."

"I was drinking coffee because I was doped up on painkillers," I said.

"Oh come on," said Tony. "The coffee wasn't that hot."

I held up my right hand. "Broken hand," I said. "That's how we met in the first place. I broke my hand."

"Oh right," he said. "I met another guy with a broken hand once. His name was Alvin. He worked in a circus. I met him on the bus too."

I slumped down a bit on my side of the seat. The road ahead of us was empty. If only there was some oncoming traffic I could end this right now. "Maybe you should tell me about your bass again," I said. There was a bag of assorted junk food between us. "Better yet, give me a Pringle. You've got two good hands and I'm driving."

"Okay." Tony opened a can of Pringles. He handed me a small stack of them. I braced the steering wheel with my right forearm and took the chips with my left hand. I placed one on my tongue and balanced the rest of the stack on my left thigh.

Tony put the can of Pringles carefully back in the plastic shopping bag and tied the top of the bag in a loose bow.

"Why did you do that?" I asked.

"What?"

"Tie the top of the bag like that?"

"Well, what if you have to brake suddenly, or we hit a moose? The Pringles and the Pepsi and the cheese balls would all go flying. It would be a mess. You don't want cheese balls all over the inside of the truck." Tony paused for a moment. "Although they do kind of match the paint. I wonder if you could make a kind of paste out of cheese balls and cover up some of the scratches on the side. This truck could use some detailing."

"What if I want more Pringles?" I said. "And if we hit a moose, I guarantee the inside of a truck will be a mess anyway." I popped another one of the Pringles in my mouth.

"Well, it will be less of a mess," said Tony. "It's an imperfect world. The best that we can do is to do the best we can. Even if the truck is slightly less of a mess when we hit that moose, the world will be a better place than if I hadn't tied that knot." He picked up the bag, gave one end of the bow a yank and it came untied. "And it's easy enough to open again. Want some more Pringles?"

"No thanks," I said.

Tony tied the bag up again and put it on the seat between us. "It would probably wash off right away," he said.

"What?"

"The cheese ball paste. Unless we missed it with some kind of glue or something. Some chemical that wasn't water soluble. Maybe we could somehow harvest the orange dust from the outside of the cheese balls and mix it with some epoxy or something."

"Or instead of cheese balls and epoxy, we could just buy some orange paint," I said.

"Yes," said Tony. "That would work. But right now we don't have any orange paint but we do have cheese balls and epoxy."

"We have epoxy?"

"It's in the glove compartment. I noticed it earlier," said Tony. He opened the glove compartment and showed it to me. "We don't have orange paint but we do have cheese balls and epoxy. I like to solve problems with what I have on hand rather than, you know, dreaming of a perfect world."

"Do you mean that perfect world that has orange paint?" I said. "Tony, I don't want you to get too excited, but I think we may be living in that perfect world. Maybe things aren't as bad as you think. Maybe you didn't need to tie that bag up. Maybe we won't hit that moose after all."

"Don't get me wrong," he said. "I'm not suggesting we stop the truck now and mix up a paste of cheese balls and epoxy. For one thing, what if we get hungry later? It's probably far more important that we have some food on hand than to spruce up the truck. I mean, you're the bush man and all, but surely we should keep some emergency food with us at all times in case something happens." Tony undid the knot on the bag and peered inside it. He tied it back up again. "Still, it would be nice to clean up the truck a bit. Not with cheese balls or anything, but maybe just some soap and water."

>> Farts Like Gold: 35

"Beer or Baileys?" asked Cassandra. She held out a can of Budweiser in one hand a bottle of Baileys in the other.

"Think I'll start with beer," said Lucy. She took the can from Cassie and popped the tab. It foamed briefly and she put her mouth over the top of the can. She leaned forward so most of the beer went into her mouth or onto her floor of the bus.

"Good work!" said Amber. "Save the skirt!"

"Nice skirt," said April.

"Well, it's actually a dress, but I'm cold," said Lucy. "You guys look great, though!"

"Let's see the full effect," said Amber. "Take the fleece off for a second."

"Maybe in a bit."

"I'll turn the oven back on," said April.

"Do you want something to eat?" asked Cassandra. "I'll get you a plate of lasagne if you want."

"I'll get it," said Lucy.

"No," said Cassandra. "It's no trouble. I should check what's going on out there anyway." She walked down the steps into the dining tent.

"Show us the dress," said April.

"Okay," said Lucy. She took off her fleece and put it beside her on the freezer. She hopped down. She gave a little twirl, then curtsied.

"That's gorgeous," said Amber.

"In a kind of Beverly Hill Billies kind of way," said April. "I can see why you need the fleece."

"I think it's fantastic!" said Amber. "Where did you find it?"

Down in the dining tent, the party was in full swing now. Cassandra put some lasagne on a plate. The garlic bread was gone now. She noticed that Joe and Brendan had moved from beside the wood stove. She could just make them out through the crowd at the office table at the back of the tent. They were looking at maps.

One of the lasagne pans was empty. Cassandra took it and the plate she had just prepared up to the cookbus. Lucy took the plate and hopped up on the counter.

"Thanks," she said.

"Nice dress," said Cassandra. She put the empty pan across the sink and ran some water into it.

"It's Value Village," said Lucy.

"They always have the best stuff," said Amber. She was wearing a long red sheath dress with long white gloves that came up past her elbows. "If you ever need a ballgown for under ten bucks, Value Village is the place to find it."

"True," said April. "It's where I shop for almost all of my formal wear for the bush. Which, I guess, really, is all my formal wear."

Lucy stood up. "I think I'm going to go eat at a table. Thanks for the beer."

Cassandra took a drag of her cigarette. "No problem," she said.

Lucy walked down the steps into the dining tent. Cassandra watched as she made her way through the crowd to the office table in back. Brendan looked up as Lucy sat next to him.

April touched Cassandra on the knee. "We should make some popcorn," she said. "We've got 2 kilos of the stuff. It's good party food."

Cassandra put out her cigarette in the can she used as an ashtray. "Sure," she said. "Popcorn. Pop, pop, popcorn. Always a hit."

>> Farts Like Gold: 34

Lucy took off the helmet she'd borrowed from Brendan. She put the gloves inside it and balanced it on one of the equipment boxes. There was a line of planters waiting for the shower. They passed a joint around. Someone offered it to her. She took a drag and passed it back to the next person in the line.

None of the women in camp were in the line waiting for the shower. Lucy stayed by the stove for a while to warm up then went back out into the rain and walked to her tent. She knelt under the tarp and took off her rain gear and her top. She zipped open her tent, swivelled around and sat down inside it as she pulled her trousers down. She kicked off her rubber boots. Both her socks came off with them. All of her clothes were soaked, including her underwear. It was a struggle to get her sports bra off. She left all of her wet clothes in a pile outside the tent. She grabbed a mostly clean tee shirt and scrubbed herself as clean as possible with it. She was shivering now. She pulled on a pair of clean panties, a pair of men's long underwear, and a tee shirt. She squirmed her way into her sleeping bag and worked her legs up and down inside the bag to generate some heat.

When she was warm enough she sat up in the tent and dug through her pack until she found the dress she'd been saving for the gown-plant. It was a shoulderless red-checked gingham dress. She took off the tee shirt. She pulled the dress over her head. Then she put the tee shirt back on overtop of it along with a polar fleece jacket.

Still half in the sleeping bag, she unzipped the door of her tent and poured the water out of her boots. She grimaced and wiped the mud off of her hands on a patch of moss near the door. She climbed out of the sleeping bag and put on two pairs of dirty but clean socks. She used a dirty tee shirt to dry out the insides of her boots as much as possible and then pulled them on. She squatted outside her tent and zipped the door closed.

She pulled her raincoat around her shoulders and flipped the hood over her head. She made her way as quickly as she could to the cookbus.

She opened the door at the front of the bus and walked up the steps. April and Cassie were inside talking to Amber. Lucy took off her raincoat and hung it on the railing by the door.

Amber saw her and let out a whoop. "Hey! Hey!" she said. "It's a hen party!"

>> Farts Like Gold: 33

"Bell bottoms!" shouted the ghetto blaster.

"Bell bottoms!" shouted Kathy.

"Bell Captains!" shouted Matt.

Cassandra spotted Brendan and Joe. She put a couple of helpings of lasagne on a couple of plates. She added slices of garlic bread and squeezed her way through the dancers to the lunch table. She added some Caesar salad to each plate. Matt jostled her.

"Sorry," he said.

"No problem," she said. She turned around and danced briefly with the group.

She turned back to the table and picked up the plates. She weaved her way through the dancers and brought the plates over to the table they were sitting at.

"Want some grub?" she asked.

"Thanks," said Joe.

"You are the finest human being I have ever known," said Brendan.

Cassandra wiped her hands on her apron. She picked a crouton off of Brendan's plate and popped in her mouth. "Nah," she said. "I'm only the second finest human being you know." She turned around and danced back to the kitchen through the group in front of lunch table.

Joe looked at Brendan. "Who do you think is number one?"

Brendan was chewing on a piece of garlic bread. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well, if you're the second, who do you think is the first?"

Brendan took a sip of his scotch. "Probably you, I guess. Or maybe April. Or Mother Theresa. Or Sarah McLachlan. She likes Sarah McLachlan a lot. Who do you think it is?"

"Lucy?"

Brendan shook his head. "Lucy may be many things, but I suspect there are finer human beings out there." He swivelled around to face the table and give proper attention to his meal. Joe put his plate on the table as well and turned to face him.

"She's a nice girl, that Lucy," he said.

Brendan sliced off a corner of his lasagne. "She's too good looking," he said. "That's never a good thing." He put the corner of lasagne in his mouth.

"Doesn't have to be," said Joe.

Brendan chewed his lasagne. He pushed the bottle of scotch forward and swallowed his lasagne. "Have another drink," he said.

>> Farts Like Gold: 32

A sudden squall of rain pelted against the roof of the truck. It drowned out the music from the dining tent for a few seconds. He tried to remember if he'd ever had worse weather on any job. He didn't think so. He checked the mirror. The windows were fogging up but he thought he could make out a speck of light coming towards him.

Brendan drove the quad as close as he could get to the dryshack. He stood up on the pegs to allow Lucy to get off. His hands and face were numb. Lucy stood up behind him and leaned against him on the quad. She leaned her elbows against his back and held up her hands still encased in the bright orange oversize gloves. Brendan looked over his shoulder.

"Thanks for the gloves," she said. She moved her arms out of the way, leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. She moved her head back, but stayed leaning against him. Brendan looked at her. As well as the gloves, he had given her his helmet. It was mostly white and much too big for her. There was a streak of mud on her cheek and her lips were slightly blue from the cold. All the colour in her face had been drawn into her eyes.

"It's raining," he said. Lucy nodded.

He twisted sideways on the quad so his left leg was resting on the gas tank and he could look at her without twisting his neck. Lucy grabbed his arm for balance. "You're welcome," he said. He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the lips.

She smiled. Then she swung her leg over, and stepped off the quad. She walked into the dryshack still wearing the helmet and gloves.

Brendan sat down on the quad and squinted up into the rain. "I am a fucking idiot," he said.

Then he got off the quad and walked into the dining tent.

Joe waited until he was inside then he opened the door of the truck and followed.

Inside the dining tent, Brendan opened his office box and took out a bottle of single malt scotch whiskey. He poured some into a plastic mug and walked over to the airtight stove with the bottle and the mug. One of the planters made room for him on the bench nearest the stove.

"Thanks."

Joe came up to him. Someone scooted over on the next bench and Joe sat down. He held out an empty mug.

"Any chance I can get some of that?" he asked.

"Sure."

"Hey, it's the good stuff!"

"Nothing but the best," said Brendan. "I may be underdressed, but at least I've got high class booze."

"That you do."

"Just need to warm up a bit. Then I'll put something dry on."

"No worries."

Jon Spenser Blues Explosion was playing on the ghetto blaster. A group of five planters including Matt and Kathy danced in front of the lunch table.

>> Farts Like Gold: 31

Cassandra and April had changed for dinner. It was a tradition on Brendan and Joe's crew to have a "gown plant" one day every season. On Gown Plant day, everyone had to wear dresses while working. Most people hit the charity shops at the start of the season and bought the most flamboyant outfit they could find. Cassandra was wearing a canola yellow prom dress with a white petticoat. She had a garland of plastic white and red roses in her hair. April wore a turquoise sheath dress and a Greek fisherman's cap. Both wore thick woollen tights and rubber boots as a consolation to the weather.

The dining tent had a whiteboard that hung above the lunch table. It displayed how many days were left in the contract, how many trees had been planted to date, the day's menu, and anything else the foremen or cooks needed to pass on to the planters. Cassandra had erased all the messages and had written in large letters, "Please note that Fancy Dress is required for tonight's Dinner." She had decorated it with drawings of hearts and flowers and martini glasses.

There were about 40 planters in total in the camp. About half of these were in the dining tent and most of these had got the gown-plant spirit. Matt wore nothing but an orange boob-tube, a kilt, and rubber boots. Paul hadn't brought anything for gown plant day. He had improvised by making himself a skirt out of streamers of blue and red flagging tape. He sat on a kitchen box near the lunch table. Kathy knelt on the box beside him. She applied lipstick carefully to Paul's lips. She wore the same ladybug miniskirt she always wore planting but had spruced herself up by wearing Amber's best bra outside of a tight flesh-coloured tee shirt. The effect was striking, at least from a distance.

The need to concentrate on fashion meant that that there was an abnormally long line for the shower and a much shorter line than normal for dinner. April had put a number of cartons of juice out on the lunch table for mixer. Matt stood next to Paul and Kathy. He ate lasagne from a plastic plate and had a battered flask of rye whiskey wedged in his boob-tube.

"Can I have some of that?" asked Paul.

"Sure, what's your pleasure?" said Matt. He picked up one of the cartons. "Rye and orange juice? Rye and apple juice? Rye and cranberry?"

"I'll have a rye and apple," said Paul. "Make it a double."

"Coming right up," said Matt. He put his plate down, and pulled the flask out of his top. He poured a glug of rye into a mug and filled it up with apple juice. "Wise choice, but don't ignore the cranberry juice. Rye and cranberry juice is nowhere near as terrible as you might imagine."

Kathy put the top back on her lipstick and stuck it back in the Duke's of Hazzard lunch box she used for her toiletries. "Personally," said Kathy. "I think I'll stick with beer."

Both Matt and Paul shook their heads. "Beer is just not efficient for camp life," said Paul.

"It's too bulky," said Matt.

"Exactly," said Paul. "It's only about 5% alcohol. You want hard liquor. Rye or Vodka or Rum. Something that you can mix with anything."

"This rule," said Matt, "is vital if you're ever on a helicopter job. You're only allowed so much luggage by weight in this company. You have to make it count."

"All I know is that I'd rather have a beer than a rye and cranberry juice," said Kathy.

"Don't knock it until you've tried it," said Matt. "I promise - elixir of the Gods." To prove the point he poured himself a rye and cranberry juice and took a drink. "Perfection," he said. He stuffed the flask back in the boob-tube.

"Isn't that cold?" asked Kathy.

"Absolutely fucking freezing," said Matt. "But you of all people should know you've got to suffer to look beautiful."

"I don't suffer," she said. "I just am beautiful."

"That you are," he said. "That bra looks great. If I had breasts like yours I wouldn't need to stuff my top with cold metal things."

Joe drove up to the camp. He could hear the music from the dining tent over the noise of the engine. Alistair and Cameron finished the rest of their beer in the truck. When he was done, Alistair reached over and crushed his empty beer can around the steering wheel.

"For luck," he said. He and Cameron got out of the truck and walked to the dryshack.

Joe stayed in the truck and peeled the beer can off the steering wheel. He rolled the window down and tossed it behind him into the bed of the truck. He rolled the window up again. He checked the mirror. No sign of Brendan and Lucy yet. He crossed his arms and leaned his head back against the seat. There was no point in getting out of the truck until he knew they'd got back to camp safely.

>> Farts Like Gold: 30

Cassie was just putting the lasagne in the oven when Joe climbed the steps into the cookbus. April was chopping some tomatoes for the salad.

"Afternoon, my lovelies," he said.

"You're filthy," said Cassie. "Don't touch anything."

"Sorry," he said. He stuffed his hands under his armpits inside his raincoat, and took a step backwards. "I've got good news and bad news."

"Is the good news that it's going to stop raining?" asked April.

"No. Kind of the opposite," he said. "The good news is that because of the rain and Brendan's broken quad we're going to have a day off tomorrow." April put down her knife and looked at Cassie. Cassie put down the lasagne she had in her hands. "The bad news," said Joe, "is that it's going to be a day off in camp."

"You're shitting me," said Cassie. "What the hell is everyone going to do sitting around camp in the rain?"

Joe shrugged. "Brendan doesn't trust the bus on these roads with the weather the way it's been."

Cassie picked up the lasagne again and put it in one of the ovens. It only went part way in. She held it with one hand while she grabbed a tea towel and jiggled the other lasagne out of the way.

"Hot breakfast or cold breakfast?" asked April.

"Whatever you want," said Joe.

"Cold breakfast," said Cassie. "Let everyone sleep in."

"Including us," added April.

"They can make what they want when they get up," said Cassie. "We'll put together a big lunch table." She closed the oven. "What are you planning to do now, Joe?" she asked.

"Well, Brendan has my quad. I was thinking of walking back into my block and checking some trees," he said.

Cassie shook her head. "Those planters are not going to be happy about spending tomorrow in camp and not making any money. I guarantee you that, right now, they would be happy to risk their lives for a warm bed and a shower. I think you should make sure this camp is as inviting as you possibly can before they get here. If we can give them a good party tonight, they may not lynch us tomorrow. Make sure the stoves in the dining tent and dryshack are stoked and there's plenty of wood. Clean up the dryshack as much as you can. Everyone is going to want a shower tonight."

Joe nodded. "You're right. I'll get on it."

April went past Cassie to the front of the bus. She pulled a sixpack of beer out of cupboard. She handed one to Cassie and tossed one to Joe. "And hey! Let's not forget it's a party night!" she said. She put three of the cans on the counter and opened the remaining can.

Joe and Cassie opened their beers. The three of them raised their beer cans. "Party night!" they said. Joe downed half of his beer in one go. Cassie and April each took a swig and continued working. Amber tossed the tomatoes she'd been chopping into the salad. Cassie stirred one of the enormous pots of soup on the stove.

Joe walked down into the dining tent. He went over to the wood burning stove. He put his beer down on a nearby table and checked the fire. It was going strong. He picked up the beer and finished it on his way to the dryshack.

Brendan sat on Joe's quad at the furthest tree cache in the cutblock. Lucy, Alistair, and Cameron were walking back out from the back of their land. They were easy to spot in their bright orange and yellow rain gear. Lucy wore orange. The other two wore yellow. He watched as Cameron (or maybe it was Alistair) slipped and fell. He got up. With this kind of weather and this kind of ground, falling was the normal state of being for a treeplanter. Brendan keyed the mike on his radio, "Joe, Brendan here," he said.

"Go ahead."

"I'm just waiting for my last planters to walk out. Are you anywhere nearby? Any chance you could pick a couple of us up?"

"I'm in camp. Cassie thought I should spruce things up a bit," said Joe.

"Is everybody back from your block?" asked Brendan.

"I'm still waiting for Marko and Phil, but Les tells me they're on their way. So far no one seems too upset about taking tomorrow off."

"Any chance you could get somebody else to do the party preparations while you come get us?" said Brendan.

There was a pause. Brendan watched as either Cameron or Alistair fell again.

Joe's voice came over the radio. "Sure, no problem. Be there in fifteen minutes."

Brendan put his radio back in his inside vest pocket and buttoned up his raincoat. He waited as the three planters arrived at the cache. They stuck their shovels in the ground near their last line of trees. Then they put their planting bags under the tarp that had been set up for the tree-boxes and grabbed their backpacks.

"Day off tomorrow," said Brendan. "One of the quads is broken."

Alistair undid the bungie straps on the front of the quad. "Fantastic," he said. "Are we going into town?" Cameron piled the three daypacks on the front luggage rack. He held them in place while Alistair strapped them down.

"'Fraid not," said Brendan.

"Well, shit on a stick," said Alistair. "Not much of a day off." He scraped some of the mud off his boot on one of the front quad tires.

"Sorry," said Brendan. "Anybody want a ride out to the road?"

The three planters looked at each other. "Ladies first," said Cameron.

"No thanks," said Lucy. "I'll walk with Alistair."

"Okay, then," said Cameron. Brendan stood up. Cameron climbed onto the seat behind him. He sat far back on the seat and leaned back, supporting himself with his hands on the back rack of the quad.

"Start walking," said Brendan. "I'll be back."

Alistair and Lucy were almost halfway there when Brendan got back from the road. Lucy let Alistair get the next ride. When Brendan got to the road with Alistair, Joe was there with the truck.

"I can only really take two of you," he said.

"Well, you might as well take these guys," said Brendan. "I'll take Lucy back on the quad."

Alistair and Cameron climbed into the truck. There were four cans of beer on the dashboard. "Whoo-hoo!" said Alistair. "Party on, Garth!" He opened one of the cans of beer."

"Party on, Wayne!" said Cameron.

"You want?" asked Joe.

"No thanks," said Brendan. "There's no cup holder on this damn thing." He gestured down at the quad.

"See you at camp," said Joe. He drove off. Brendan turned the quad around just as Lucy arrived at the road.

"Looks like it's just you and me, babe," he said. Lucy had the hood of her raincoat up. Wet scraggly hair trailed out from underneath it on either side of her face.

"No offence," she said, "but I would rather have been in the truck."

"Here," said Brendan. He took off his gloves. They were bright orange, insulated, and rubberised. "Take these."

Lucy put the gloves on. She laughed. "I look like some kind of mutant cartoon character."

"Anything for a lady," said Brendan. He stood up and Lucy climbed onto the quad behind him. He sat down again and Lucy leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his chest. Brendan stiffened slightly.

"For warmth," she said.

Brendan let himself relax into her. "Warmth is good," he said. He popped the quad into gear, pushed his thumb against the throttle, and headed towards camp.

>> Farts Like Gold: 29

After Joe met Brendan at camp they drove back to where Brendan had left the dead quad. Brendan wrapped a chain around the hitch on Joe's quad and then hooked the front frame of Brendan's quad. Brendan gave the quad a push as Joe started towing. Brendan rode with his left foot on the peg and his right knee on the seat. Whenever Joe's quad began to slip too much, Brendan jumped off and pushed until Joe had traction again.

Once they got out to the road, Joe lined both quads up with the ramps that leaned against the tailgate of the truck. He stopped his quad a couple of feet behind the ramps to leave himself room to drive out of the way. Brendan let his quad roll forward enough to give the chain some slack. He jumped off and unhooked the chain from both quads. Joe drove his quad around to the back of the other quad.

"Should I try to push it?" he asked.

Brendan looked at the ramps. There were two of them about a foot wide. They were made of perforated metal to provide traction. It was still raining. It hadn't let up for more than a few minutes in the last two days. The ramps were slick with rain. The quad weighed six hundred pounds. He walked up to the ramps and checked that they were braced as well as could be on the tailgate.

"Might as well give it a shot," he said. He climbed back on the dead quad and stood on the pegs. "Don't smack me too hard."

"I'll be as gentle as a kitten," said Joe. He drove up to the back of the quad. There was a clunk as the two bikes met. He drove forward. Brendan's quad moved smoothly up the ramp. Brendan leaned forward over the handlebars. Once Joe's front wheels were on the ramps they skittered slightly. Joe lifted off on the throttle slightly and the wheels straightened up again. Both quads stayed on the ramp. Joe gave it a bit more gas and both quads kept moving up the ramp. The front tires of Brendan's quad were now on the tail gate. Once all four of Joe's wheels were on the ramps he didn't have enough traction to push Brendan's quad any further. Both Joe and Brendan locked their respective parking brakes. They climbed carefully off of their quads and jumped to the ground.

"Should we pull her?" asked Joe.

"That's probably the best plan," said Brendan.

They walked around to the side of the truck and climbed into the back. They each braced one foot sideways in the crease where the tailgate was hinged and grabbed hold of the front rack. Brendan released the parking brake and they both leaned with all their weight to get the dead quad the rest of the way into the truck. It was nearly all the way in when Joe slipped on the wet truck bed. The quad started to roll back but Joe managed to jam his leg under the right front tire and it stopped. Brendan reached over and put the parking brake on.

"You okay," he asked.

"Never better," said Joe. He climbed to his feet and they braced themselves again, this time against the wheel wells inside the truck bed. Brendan released the brake and they pulled the quad the rest of the way into the truck. Brendan put the brake back on and strapped the front of the quad down. Joe climbed around the back. He backed his quad off the ramps and slid them in underneath Brendan's quad. He closed the tail gate.

Joe went to his quad and rode it up beside where Brendan was strapping down the back of his quad. "Now what?" he said. "What do you want to do about this block? What should we do about tomorrow?"

Brendan sat down on the back rack of the quad and propped his feet on the railing of the truck bed. "Well, it's 3 o'clock now. There are six people in there. Two more runs should set them up for the rest of the day. I can do it, or you can do it. I don't mind. I don't know how your blocks are doing? I think tomorrow might be stretching it with one quad. We're four days in. Maybe we should have an impromptu day off."

"In town or in camp?" asked Joe.

"Well, the crew will be pissed off, but I was thinking in camp. I just did a grocery run and I get the feeling that everyone's got enough booze squirreled away to make it a good party. The day off tomorrow will give us a chance to set the blocks up for the day after. Hopefully Gord can get us another quad up her by then and we'll be back on track."

"Fine with me. It's crap weather for planting anyway," said Joe. "But I think the crew would rather be in a nice warm hotel room with a shower tonight."

Brendan shook his head. "I don't think we can do it." He ticked off the points on his fingers. "One, we've got no cash to give them. Two, we'd have to drive them in which means one of us wouldn't be here to help set up the blocks. Three, with this rain the roads will be absolute crap and I'm not keen on taking the bus on them if I don't have to."

"Well, I guess it would give us a chance to work on access," said Joe. "Maybe we can hire some keeners to help out. The rain is definitely causing some problems."

"It's a plan then. Do you mind if I take the quad? I'll finish off this block. We'll let everyone know at dinner," said Brendan. "Can you let Cassandra and Amber know the plan?"

"No problem." Joe got off his quad. Brendan jumped down from the truck. He wiped the rain out of his face and got on Joe's quad. "I'll try not to break this one," he said.

"If you do, then we're going in to town, right?"

"I promise," said Brendan. He slewed the quad around on the muddy road and headed for the tree cache. Joe climbed into the truck and headed back to camp.

>> Farts Like Gold: 28

After breakfast, we drove to the warehouse in Tony's five year old Honda Civic. Virginia came to the door as we drove up. She wore a Bushpro cap with a greying ponytail poking out the back, blue jeans, and a Skinny Puppy tee shirt.

"Congratulations," she said. "You are about to be reunited with your loved ones."

"Virginia," I said. "This is Tony. Tony, this is Virginia." Tony looked a bit awestruck. His mouth was open and his hands hung limply at his sides.

"Delighted to meet you," said Tony. "You look like a very strong woman."

Virginia laughed and punched Tony lightly on the arm. He took a step back. "Damn straight!" she said. "I may be old, but I bet I'd snap you like a twig if we ever got together." She turned and went into the office. We followed.

"I told Tony we might have some work for him," I said. "But what do you mean by me being reunited with my loved ones?"

Virginia ignored me. She leaned against her desk and eyed Tony up and down.

"That's right, Ma'am," he said.

"Which part?" she asked. "The part where I'd snap you like a twig, or the part where you're looking for work?"

Tony said, "Well, not to brag, but I am pretty flexible. I even know a guy who worked in the circus. I guess that's not much proof of anything, but, anyway, I don't think I'd snap. So I guess I must mean the part where I'm looking for work."

"Anything broken? Both your hands okay?" she asked.

"No, Ma'am, and yes, Ma'am. Nothing's broken and I'm very flexible." Tony raised his right leg and put his foot on the desk. He stretched out over his leg and grabbed hold of his shoe with both hands.

Virginia pushed his foot off the desk and Tony stumbled forward. "Good. You're bendy and not broken. Well then, we may have a job for you," she turned to me. "Brendan managed to wreck a quad. He needs a new one. Gord and I were thinking you could drive it up to camp. And the timing is about right for you to meet with Franklin and unload a reefer for the helicopter job near Grande Cache."

Tony interrupted. "What's a reefer?" he asked.

"It's a refrigerated truck," I said. "They use them to haul trees."

"Got it," he said. "Thanks."

Virginia continued. "If you vouch for him you can bring bendy boy here. He can help drive and the two of you can unload boxes for Franklin which should make the trip worthwhile."

I held up my hand. "I can probably drive all right, but I don't think I'm quite up to hauling boxes around."

"You'll be fine," said Virginia. "There's nothing wrong with your other hand, is there? It's better for both of us if I put you on modified work. It costs us less in WCB and you waste less money on booze and riotous living. Besides, the only one else who is available is Gord and he's got too much to do around here."

"Well, what do you need Tony for?"

She flicked my broken hand with finger. I jumped. "That's why," she said. "Modified work means you might as well lug around boxes with one hand, but Bendy Boy is probably going to be more effective when it comes to actually doing any real work."

"I'm not sure he's really up for a couple of days on the load unloading boxes from a truck. I told him he'd just be working around the warehouse," I said.

"Hey, no, it sounds exciting," said Tony. "A road trip and some good honest work in the great outdoors. Fantastic!"

"Are you sure?" I asked. "We might be away for a couple of days. You might need to sleep in camp. Have you got a sleeping bag or anything?"

"Hey, I've been camping before. I've got all the kit. This is perfect. It's exactly the reason I quit my job," he said.

"I thought you quit your job to become a rock star," I said.

"Well, yes, but I think the music is only one aspect of playing bass. A bass player needs a certain mystery, a certain moodiness. You can't develop that in an office. I need a spliff of adventure if I'm going to be artistically moody."

"Well, I'm not sure how much adventure there is unloading a truck on the side of the road, but okay, the more the merrier." I turned to Virginia. "When do you want us to leave? Can I get a credit card?"

"I'll give you a gas card and $200 for expenses," she said. "Just make sure you bring me the receipts. And bring tallies back with you this time. Gord's loading the quad on to the pumpkin out back. You can take off as soon as you're ready."

The pumpkin was a bright orange Chevrolet 4x4. When we went out back, Gord was checking the oil on it. The quad was already strapped down in the back. I peered in the back of the truck in front of the quad. There was a jack-all and a spare.

"Gord," I said. "This is Tony."

Gord pulled his head out from under the hood. "Hi there," he said.

"Nice truck," said Tony. "Great colour. I've never seen an orange truck before. I bet it would be hard to lose in the forest. That's good thinking."

"Well, it was cheap at auction," Gord said. "That's probably the best thing about the colour."

After a bit more chit-chat, Gord gave me the keys to the quad and directions to where we were supposed to meet the reefer near Grande Cache.

I arranged to meet Tony at his place in an hour. He took off in the Civic to pick up his sleeping bag and get some clothes together. I sorted out the gas card and the cash with Virginia, then hit the road. I stopped by the bulk station and filled up the truck. I gathered my stuff from the hotel and paid the bill. When I got to Tony's he was sitting on the steps with two large stylish samsonite suitcases and a backpack.

"I wasn't sure what I should bring," he said. "But I figured you had the truck so there would be plenty of room."

>> Farts Like Gold: 27

I slept straight through until the next morning. I rubbed my eyes, then got dressed and headed down the stairs. Halfway down I faced into a corner of the stairwell and undid my fly. I realised where I was just as I was about to loose a stream of piss. I clenched my penis to stifle the flow and stuffed it back in my pants. A bit dribbled down my leg, but at least I was able to contain it within my clothes.

I went back upstairs and changed into a new pair of underwear. I stopped off at the toilet on the way downstairs this time.

I stopped in the lobby to call Tony.

He answered on the third ring.

"Hello?" he said.

"Hi Tony, it's Kent," I said. "You left a message for me."

"Absolutely!" he said. "I wanted to thank you for giving me that boost of confidence the other night. You heard the truth. You can't argue with the truth."

"Indeed," I said. "What truth are we talking about exactly?"

"The truth about my music. The truth that I am a destined to be a bass player, not work in an office," said Tony.

"Ah, that truth."

"Exactly!" said Tony. "If it hadn't been for you I never would have had the courage to quit my job."

"You quit your job?"

"Yesterday. It was fantastic! They didn't even want me to serve my notice period. It's just good timing all around. My boss said he was thinking of firing me anyway. The timing couldn't have been better. Not much work at the moment, he told me. Go chase your dream!"

"Go chase your dream -- he really said that?" I asked.

"Well, not in so many words, but you taught me something the other night," said Tony. "You can either hear what people are trying to tell you, or you can hear the truth."

I covered my eyes with my forearm and leaned against the wall. "So, what now?" I asked. "You quit your job. What are you going to do? Are you going to join a band?"

"Well, I'm not exactly sure. I mean there's no rush. If it's going to happen, it's going to happen. I'm kind of grooving on the freedom," he said. "Besides, I don't have a bass yet. I found the bass I want, though. It's beautiful. It's a daphne-blue Fender Highway number one. It's beautiful."

"Sounds pricey."

"Music has no price. Tracy Davenport taught me that. It has great value, but no price. Which is a bit odd when you think about it. What I learned from my old job is that the value of something can be constant. But the price, i.e. what people are willing to pay for something, is extremely fluid. That said, you can always get someone to agree on a price for just about anything. Almost everything has a price. That's what makes music so amazing. It has no price!"

"How much is the bass," I asked.

"Just under £1300," said Tony. "Which is a problem. I've got enough money to buy the bass but that would pretty much clean me out. Food would be a problem."

"Maybe you shouldn't have quit your job quite so soon," I suggested.

"Absolutely not. It took a lot of courage to leave that job," said Tony. "You gave me the courage the other night. If I didn't do it yesterday I might never have done it. I can't thank you enough. Hey! What are you doing now? Can I buy you breakfast? Do you want to go see my bass?"

"Thanks," I said. "But I'm on my way to work."

"I thought you were off work. Broken hand, narcolepsy, etcetera."

"I'm working one-handed. It's better than nothing," I said. "Actually, Tony, do you want to come with me? It's not office work. It's good honest heavy lifting and wrench pulling. You might be able to pick up a few bucks towards your bass."

"And we could hang out together!"

"Yes, there's that," I said.

"Fantastic! I'll only do it if I can buy you breakfast," said Tony.

"All right," I said. "Meet me at Uncle Albert's."

>> Farts Like Gold: 26

After I hung up the phone I walked outside. I thought maybe another greasy breakfast might help. I didn't even make it off the steps of the hotel. The sun was just too bright. I sat down on the steps until someone looked like they might want to talk to me. Then I went back to bed. I woke up around noon. This time I managed to get something to eat. I had a burrito and three glasses of orange juice at Julio's. It definitely improved my outlook.

The company I work for, Larix Forestry, has their offices down off Argyll Road at about 90th street. I took the bus as close as I could and walked the rest of the way. Virginia was in the front office. She was the office manager for Larix. She had run camps for Steve, the owner of Larix, in the early days. She broke her knee playing hockey about six years ago. Field work was no longer an option for her. She was about forty, but looked much older, a result of spending most of her summers outside and most of her winters on an ice rink.

"Kent! Joe told me I might see you," she said. "Did you bring me any paperwork?"

"I've got some WCB forms." I dug around in my bag.

"What about tallies? Did Brendan send any tallies with you?"

"Well, no," I said. "Brendan didn't know if I'd be coming here or not. When we left camp it was just to go to the hospital."

"Always bring tallies," Virginia told me. "How am I supposed to bill anybody if I don't know what we've planted? It's not hard. You go to town; you take the tallies with you. That Brendan has a brain made of cheese."

"Sorry," I said. "Do you want these?" I offered the WCB forms.

"Yeah, I'll take care of them. Don't worry." She stood up, reached across the desk and took the papers. She glanced at them and dropped them in the empty "in" tray on the desk. "So, any news from the camp?" she asked. "Any big pounders out there? Any gossip? Is Cassie sleeping with anyone yet?"

"Cassie? I thought she was with Gord."

"No longer. Don't you even know what's going on in your own camp?" She walked through to the lunchroom and opened the fridge. "Beer?" she asked.

"Sure," I said.

She opened three bottles and handed one to me. "Follow me," she said. She pushed open the swing door to the warehouse in back. "Gord!" she yelled.

Gord pushed himself out from under the truck he was working on. "What?" he said.

"You still going out with Cassie?" Virginia asked.

"We were never going out," he said. "Just friends, that's all."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. You still going out?"

"Well, no. Broke it off at the start of the season," he reached up and grabbed the beer that Virginia offered.

"See," she said to me. "Told you. So, who's she with now?"

I looked at Gordon. I felt a bit odd talking about Cassie in front of him. He took a swig of his beer. "She's not going out with anyone," I said.

"And you?" asked Virginia. "You still going out with Lucy?"

"Well, yeah," I said.

"For now, anyways," she said. She laughed and punched me in the arm.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. I've just never known Lucy to stay single, that's all," she said.

"She's not single. She's with me," I said.

"The hell she is! You're here. She's in camp," she said. "Face it, until you're back in camp, you're both single."

"Whatever," I said.

Gordon stood up. He wiped his hands on a rag. The three of us walked into the sun on the back lot.

"So what else is going on in camp? Any gossip I don't know about?" asked Virginia.

"I never have any gossip you don't know about," I said. "I don't think it's possible to have gossip you don't know about. You are the source of all gossip."

She laughed. "That may be," she said. The phone rang and she went back in to the office.

"You need any help with anything while I'm here?" I asked Gord.

"Could do. I've got a gas tank I want to put in one of the buses today. I'd appreciate a hand with that."

"No problem," I said.

After we finished our beers I spent the afternoon helping Gord around the warehouse. We agreed I would come in the next day as well. Virginia had some paperwork I could help her with.

Gord gave me a ride back to the hotel. "Do you want to join me for dinner," he asked as we got in the truck.

"No thanks, I'm tired. I think I'll have a nap and grab something a bit later," I said.

There was a note waiting for me when I picked up my key at the desk. It said, "Call Tony." I looked at the phone on the wall and then stuffed the note in my pocket. Tony could wait until after I'd had a bit of a rest.

Brendan shut the quad off. It was good and stuck. The right side was much higher than the left. He swung his left leg over to the high side of the quad and stepped down off the peg into the mud. He sank into it over his ankles.

There were three boxes of trees on the back of the quad. Brendan stayed on the high side of the quad. He removed two of the bungee cords, leaving one to hold the boxes in place. He loosened that cord and carefully pulled one of the boxes out from under it. The others stayed where they were. He balanced the box of trees he'd pulled out on the seat of the quad and hooked the bungee back in place with one hand. The boxes were rectangular. They were about two feet long, about a foot wide, and about 16 inches tall.

Each contained 270 trees and weighed about 30 to 40 pounds. Brendan swung the box up onto his right shoulder and squelched his way out of the mud on to the firmer ground beside the trail. He put the box down with one end on a log to keep the bottom from getting completely soaked. He retrieved the other two boxes and put them beside the first box. He covered the three boxes with a small tarp to keep the rain off them.

He stood and looked at the quad. Definitely stuck. He walked around to the low side and felt in the mud with his feet for somewhere firm to stand. He pulled the handlebars to the right and started the quad up. The mud was too thick to kick the quad into gear with his foot so he reached down into the mud and yanked the gear lever into first with his hand. He braced his left shoulder under the handlebar and reached across to the thumb throttle with his right hand. He straightened his legs and tried to lift the quad as he gave it some gas. Nothing happened at first, but he kept pushing and the quad moved ahead a few inches. It was too far for him to have decent leverage from where he stood. He stumbled further into the mud. It was over his boots now. He repeated the manoeuvre. The next time he did this the quad got some real purchase and surged forward. He kept the gas on and let the quad pull him out of the mud. He ran awkwardly beside it and managed to get his left foot on the peg. He swung his right knee up on to the seat and rode the quad off the main trial onto a patch of the cutline that hadn't been trashed yet.

He shut the engine off and stepped onto the ground. He wiped the mud off his hands on a patch of moss just inside the treeline. He looked at the trail. There was a big pit where the quad had been stuck. The ruts were filling up with water from the rain. He was going to need to find a new route around this mess.

He loaded the trees back on the quad. He chucked the log they had been sitting on into the patch of mud where the quad got stuck. He laid all the branches he could find perpendicular to the cutline on the mud nearest the treeline. He stomped them in place with his boots. Then he got back on the quad and continued on to the next block.

He drove through the block to the last cache that had been set up. It was empty. He threw back the tarp and put the boxes of trees he'd brought underneath it. He got back on the quad and drove back out to the road. He drove fast to keep up momentum on the muddy trail. When he got to the patch where he'd got stuck before he slowed down and drove carefully over the branches he laid down earlier.

Back at the main cache, he loaded up the quad again and drove back into the block. He crept over the branches in the mud patch again. Despite the modest road-building he'd done, the quad almost got stuck again. There were planters waiting at the other two caches in the block this time. He split his load between them and raced back out to the road.

This time Brendan thought he might as well carry some speed over the muddy patch. It worked pretty well. A few of the branches got shaken loose. He heard a couple of them bang into the undercarriage of the quad, but didn't think much about it.

The cutline was about two kilometres long. Brendan was about 100 metres from the road when the quad stopped. He tried to start it again but nothing happened. The starter sounded jammed. He tried it a couple more times but nothing happened. He got off the quad and peered underneath it. It was covered in mud and grass. He cleaned it off and found the trouble. One of the sticks had pierced the oil cooler.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" he said to himself. He pulled the stick loose and threw it as far as he could into the forest. He pulled his radio out of his inside pocket. It was wrapped in a plastic breadbag against the rain. He keyed the mike.

"Joe? Brendan here," he said.

There was a pause and then his radio crackled into life. "Yeah?" said Joe's voice.

"I'm over at the entrance to block 31 and I've got a problem," Brendan said. "I think I've killed my quad."

"Not, 'killed', killed?" said Joe.

"Pretty much," said Brendan. "I took a stick through the oil cooler. I think the engine is seized."

"Well that sucks," said Joe. "Are they set up in there at least?"

"Well, everyone is bagged up, but the caches are all empty. How's your block?"

"Busy. I don't think I can be over there for at least an hour," Joe said.

"All right. No worries. I'll meet you in camp. I'll give Gord a call and let him know what happened. I'm not sure what he'll be able to do about it though."

"Roger. See you at camp," said Joe. "Over."

"Ciao," said Brendan.

>> Farts Like Gold: 25

After Lucy clipped the mike back into the radiophone, she sat on one of the kitchen boxes and rolled a smoke.

Brendan came up to get a spare battery out of the charger for his radio.

"Hey Lucy," he said.

"Hey."

Brendan stuffed the battery in one of the inside pockets of his vest. "Did I just hear Kent?" he said.

"No secrets on the radiophone," said Lucy.

"How's he doing?"

"Okay, I guess. Sounded like he had a good night last night," she said.

"Cool."

Lucy lifted up her legs and swivelled around on the kitchen box as Cassandra squeezed by wiping her hands on her apron. Lucy stood up and punched Brendan lightly on the shoulder. "Have a good one today," she said. "See you in the shower later."

Brendan laughed. "I'll try," he said. Lucy tossed her cigarette into the airtight and slipped though a flap in the side of the tent.

Cassandra walked by Brendan carrying a stack of Tupperware containers from the lunch table. "The shower?" she said.

"No idea," said Brendan.

Cassandra shook her head. "Be careful," she said.

"There's nothing to be careful of," he said.

Lucy caught up with Alistair and Cameron by the water barrel. Alistair stood with his back against the rain. Cameron knelt on one knee filling his water jug with a hose from the barrel. She handed her jug to Cameron. He filled it halfway up before Lucy stopped him.

"That's enough," she said. "I've got a feeling it's going to be a wet one. No point in carrying more than I need."

As soon as Cameron stood up, Alistair and Lucy started off down the road. All three of them walked hunched slightly forward with the hoods of their rain jackets pulled forward over their heads.

Brendan rode by on a quad. They stepped off the trail into the bush to let him past. There were three boxes of trees strapped to the back luggage rack of the quad and two on the front. The quad slithered sideways in the mud as it passed. Brendan smiled, his teeth suddenly white in his mud-splattered face.

The trio stepped back onto the trial once he was past.

"You talk to Kent?" Alistair asked.

"Yep," said Lucy.

"How's his hand?"

"I think it's okay. He didn't say much."

"It must suck to break your hand," said Cameron. "Not as bad as your leg though. If your leg was cacked, you'd be totally out of luck out here."

"He'll be back," said Alistair. "He loves it out here. It's sunny Northern B.C. What's not to love."

Lucy looked up at the rain. She stuck her tongue out to catch a few drops. "Yeah," she said. "What's not to love?"

>> Farts Like Gold: 24

When I woke the next morning I was still wearing the clothes from the night before. This included one of my shoes. The other was nowhere to be seen. The window of my room was held open with a beer jug half full of puke. It was 6am. My hand hurt, but not nearly as much as my head.

I needed to take some more pills but I didn't have any water and the sink was down the hall. I had a brief look for my other shoe. Chances were it was under the bed, but I really didn't want to bend over. I considered removing the other shoe but that would have involved bending over as well. I sat on the edge of the bed mulling over my predicament and waiting for my head to explode.

I got up. I removed the pitcher of puke from the window. It closed very fast and very loudly. The noise made me sit down on the bed again. I got up and walked down the hall to the bathroom. I still had only one shoe on and the rhythm was oddly soothing. It gave me something to focus on. I put the jug on top of the toilet tank. I swallowed a couple of percocet and washed them down with water from the tap. Then I poured the contents of the pitcher down the toilet. I pissed into the resulting mess and flushed. I rinsed the jug out in the sink as best I could. Then I wiped it out with toilet paper and rinsed it again. When I was sure it was clean, or at least when I couldn't bring myself to clean it any more, I filled it with water. I took a good long drink, topped it up and clomped my way back to my room.

I sat on the bed and drank from the pitcher. Laying down made my head hurt worse. After a while, I got the courage to reach under the bed. Sure enough I found my other shoe. I sat on the bed a while longer and drank some water. I put my shoe on. I changed my shirt, and I left the room. I needed some fresh air and since I was up anyway I thought there was a chance I could catch Lucy before she left camp for the day.

I went downstairs. There was a payphone in the lobby. I dialled the operator and told her I wanted to make a calling card call to a radio phone. "It's Walford Mountain Tower, N166008."

Cassandra picked up on the other end, "This is N 166008. Go ahead."

"Cass, It's Kent," I said. "How are things?"

"Wet. All this water keeps falling from the sky. I don't understand how it gets up there. How's life in the city? Did they give you a new hand?" There was a click as she let go of the talk button on the mike.

"No such luck. But I'm bionic now. My hand is held together with meccano. You should see my x-rays -- very cool. Is Lucy still there?"

"She's coming. You should bring the x-rays when you come back to camp. See any movies yet?"

"No, I went to the bar last night, though. My head hurts worse than my hand."

"You poor baby. Here's Lucy." There was a double click as she handed the mike over.

"Kent! How are you doing?" said Lucy.

"Not bad. It will be a while before I'm planting again, but not bad, considering. I hear you had some rain," I said.

"Had, are having, and will have some more, by the looks of it," she said. "I'd rather be in town."

"Well, I'd rather be out there. At least then I wouldn't be hungover."

"We could switch."

"Yes, but then we'd still be apart," I said.

"Yes, but I'd be dry," she said. "Listen, I better get going. Do you know what you're doing yet? Do you want me to do anything with your stuff?"

"I don't know yet. When is the next camp move?" I asked. I listened to dead air while Lucy asked Cassie.

"Cassie says Joe says about eight more planting days with a day off in the middle somewhere."

"Thanks," I said. "Just leave it all set up for now. I'll talk to the office and see what I can sort out."

"No worries," she said. "I'm sleeping in your tent now anyway. You've got a nicer thermarest than me."

"Now I really wish I was up there," I said.

"Me too. Listen, I've got to go. Ciao, Bello," she said.

"Ciao, Bella," I said.

I heard Cassie's voice say "clear" to end the call. I hung up. I rested my forehead against the cold glass beside the phone. I bought a couple of chocolate bars from a vending machine and went back up to my room to get some sleep.

>> Farts Like Gold: 23

"Thanks," said Tony. He beamed and poured me a half and half - coffee and beer.

"And now you'll have to excuse me," I said. Something was happening to my focus. I didn't feel well. I stood. But that didn't feel quite right, so I sat down again. No, I definitely needed to get to the toilet. I stood again. I grabbed hold of the table to get my balance. I could feel my gorge rising. I wasn't going to make it. I reached out with my good hand and yanked the beer pitcher away from Tony. It spilled. He hadn't finished pouring his own glass yet.

"Hey!"

I swayed there for a second. My right hand braced myself on the table. My left hand held the beer pitcher. "Sorry," I said. "Beer's easier to clean up." I dumped the rest of the beer onto the floor. Then I threw up in the pitcher. My hand slipped off the table and I dropped to my knees. I concentrated on not spilling the pitcher. My chin hit the table on the way down. I threw up again into the pitcher. It was about half full now.

"Kent, Are you okay?" Tony asked.

I tried to nod, but the movement prompted me to throw up again. I sat back on my heels and closed my eyes, hard. When I opened them, the bouncer was standing in front of me.

"I'd leave if I could," I said.

"Get up," he said.

I pulled one leg out from under me and gave it a try. "Just give me a sec," I said. I threw up into the pitcher.

I braced my right elbow on the edge of the table and wiped my mouth with the arm holding the pitcher. I tried to stand up again but sank back down on my butt. And then, miraculously, I was standing. The bouncer was holding me up from behind. And then I was moving backwards towards the door. I looked down. My feet weren't doing the propelling. Tony was in front of me, following me, carrying our coats. It wasn't him. It must be the bouncer. I turned my head around to try to look at him.

"Thanks," I said.

"Don't spill," he said.

There was a loud bang as we went through the doors. The bouncer was surprisingly gentle when he let me go. He waited until I had my feet under me then propped me up against the wall. I offered him the pitcher.

"Keep it," he said. He turned around and went back into the bar. "Keep an eye on him," he told Tony.

"Absolutely," he said.

I offered the jug to Tony.

"I think you should keep it for now," he said. "You might need it. Good thinking pouring the beer out, by the way."

"A choice had to be made," I said.

"I really want to thank you," said Tony. "That was fantastic!"

I looked down at the pitcher. I was puzzled.

"Not the puking," said Tony. "The music! That was much better than playing in Tracy Davenport's basement. I wonder if Tracy ever dyed her hair pink. Hey, do you think I should dye my hair pink? It might make me look a bit edgier. Do you think that tall guy ever worked in the circus? He was really tall and really thin. Maybe he even knew Alvin. I think I might dye my hair pink."

"Tony, don't dye your hair pink. At least not tonight."

"You're right. I shouldn't grab the first gimmick I see. I need to think about the colour. There's pros and cons behind pink as a hair colour."

"Tony, it's been a great night, but I think I need to go home now."

"Right. Of course. What am I thinking? I'll get you home." He held out my coat.

I shook my head. "Can you carry it for me?"

"No problem."

He grabbed my arm and gently pulled me up from the wall. I swayed a bit but things were definitely looking up, balance-wise. I gestured with the pitcher of puke.

"It's that way," I said. "End of the block. The Strathcona."

Tony held me as we walked. "You know, a pink bass might be pretty cool," he said. I didn't answer.

We got to the hotel. I made it up the stairs and through the door. The desk clerk looked up from his paper but his expression didn't change.

"Can I have my key, please? Room 203."

Tony went to the desk. I hid the pitcher behind my back. The clerk gave Tony the key.

"No guests," he said.

"Oh, we're not together," said Tony.

"No guests," the clerk repeated.

"No problem," I said. "He's just helping me upstairs. I broke my hand." I held it up for proof.

The clerk went back to his paper. Tony helped me up the stairs. They were trickier than I expected. I couldn't hold the banister with either hand. One was broken and the other was holding the pitcher. I staggered up the middle of the stairs with my arms spread wide and Tony kept me propped up from behind. There were a couple of unsteady moments but we made it in the end.

Tony opened my door for me and steered me to the bed. He put my coat beside me and tried to take the pitcher.

"I want to keep it. It's useful," I said.

"No problem," he said. "You hold on to it. Do you want to put it down? Do you want some help getting into bed?"

"No, I'm fine," I said. "Thanks for everything. I'll be fine now. I'm just going to sit here for a bit and then I might have a piss."

Tony patted me on the shoulder. "Good. You sure you're going to be okay? You've got that narcolepsy problem, you know. You don't want to fall asleep and spill that thing." He pointed at the pitcher of puke.

"I'll be fine," I said. "I just need a moment to get my bearings."

"Okay," he said. "Well, give me a call some time." He turned around and opened the door.

"Tony?" I said.

"Yeah?"

"Don't dye your hair pink. At least not until you've thought about it."

"Don't worry. I won't."

"Good," I said. Tony left. He closed the door.

>> Farts Like Gold: 22

Antennae Man launched into the opening riff. Tony followed his lead. Thank God. It sounded like he could actually play. I didn't really trust myself to sing. I knew I wouldn't be able to keep in tune. I looked out at the audience. They seemed friendly. I looked at Antennae Man. He smiled at me and repeated the intro. I looked at Tony. He was completely focused on playing. He had a dreamy expression on his face. He usually looked like twelve year old accountant but now, at least, he looked like a stoned 12 year old accountant. To my ears it sounded like he might have the goods.

The only problem was that I didn't.

But I knew what I had to do. There was no way I could sing like Robert Plant, but I could definitely sing as well as William Shatner. I didn't need musicality. I needed diction and chutzpah. As Antenna Man began the intro for the third time, I stepped into the light and looked down at my feet.

This time I hit the cue dead on. I raised my head and glared at the audience. "I should have quit you baby," I said. "long time ago."

I didn't sing. I just played Shatner. I pictured the audience filled with McCoys and Spocks and Scottys. "Yeah, a long time ago," I told them. I enunciated every word clearly. "I wouldn't be here, my children, down on this killing floor."

At the words, 'killing floor' I jumped down onto the dancefloor. Someone in the crowd whooped. My first whoop. Fantastic!

Antennae Man played a solo. I headbanged my way in the general direction of the whoop. The mike didn't reach the side of the stage so I moved back to the centre. "I should have listened," I told Spock. "To my second mind".

I could hear Tony getting into it now. Soon we were at the bridge and he and Antennae Man traded solos for a good five minutes. Maybe Tony really was a musical genius. I lay on the floor and punctuated their riffs with the occasional shout of "I should have listened, baby!"

I stood up to finish the rest of the song. I told the audience about my troubles. I asked them to squeeze my lemon. And then we were at the bass solo. There were more whoops now as Tony stepped up to the centre of the stage. I could sense my rock and roll moment approaching. This was my favourite part of the song -- when Robert Plant sings "baby baby baby" over and over again. If ever Bill Shatner and I were ever going to be taken seriously as artists, we were going to have to go for it.

I sang; I actually sang!

I sang "baby, baby, baby" over and over again as Antennae Man wailed on the guitar. I let myself sink to my knees as I ran out of breath. Many many whoops. I climbed back up the stage. It seemed much easier this time. I jumped up and down to the last frenzied guitar solo. I held my hand up and the band cut on my signal.

"I'm gonna leave my children," I told them, "down on this killing floor."

I turned my back on the audience and handed the mike to Pink Girl. The crowd went wild. Tony gave back his borrowed bass and we walked off the stage. We bowed briefly in the middle of the dance floor.

The Pink Girl gestured down at us, "Kent and Tony!" We waved and went back to our table. The bartender sent over a pitcher of beer and two coffees. He gave us a thumbs-up to say it was on the house. I raised my broken hand in triumph.

"That was fantastic!" said Tony. "Were we good? Do you think we were any good? People clapped. That's a good sign, right?"

I poured myself another glass of half beer, half coffee. "You were good," I said. "Really great."

"And what about you?" asked Tony. "I'm afraid I didn't pay much attention. I was just trying not to screw up. Were you good?"

I thought about it. "I was focused," I said. "I think I gave a good performance."

"So you were good, then, Right?"

"No," I said. "I was terrible. And I should never go near a musical stage again in my life. But I gave a good performance." I grabbed Tony's shoulder. "You, on the other hand -- I honestly think you can play. I have to admit I did get a bit distracted out there. But, still, I can tell you this much. You did not suck."

>> Farts Like Gold: 21

"Tony man, We're up!" I picked up the coffee and was about to knock it back when I remembered my run-in with the bouncer. "Is it hot?" I asked.

"It's definitely hotter than the beer," said Tony.

"Of course," I said. The world was getting clearer and clearer. I poured the coffee into my empty beer glass and topped it up with beer from the pitcher. What the Hell. They were both going to the same place. I sipped. The taste was irrelevant. What I needed was the chemical effect and not to burn my mouth. "Perfect!" I finished the glass.

"So, what can you play?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" asked Tony. "I play the bass. I told you that."

"No. What songs do you know?"

"Oh. Ah. I can play the Lemon Song," he said.

"The Lemon Song?"

"Yeah. You know. Led Zeppelin," said Tony. He played some air guitar in front of me. "I should have quit you," he sang. "long time ago..."

I shuddered. "Are you sure you can play the bass?" I asked.

"No," said Tony. "That's what we've been talking about all night. I'm not sure at all. Maybe I can. Maybe I can't. It's been one of the formative dilemmas of my life."

"Right. Right," I said. "Let me put it another way. Do you think you can sing?"

"Oh," said Tony. "No, I'm certain I can't sing."

"Thank God!" I said. "You are absolutely right about that. Let's go. We're on. I've got you a bass. It's all golden. Take the jug."

I made a bee-line for the stage. Somehow I ended up at a table to the left of the stage. Fortunately it was sturdy and I was able to push off from it and propel myself towards the girl with the pink head.

"Lemons!" I told her. "I'm going to sing about lemons!" I flung my arm back towards Tony. He stood directly behind me holding the pitcher of beer. "That man needs a bass. We're a team."

Tony addressed the girl in pink and Antennae Man. "Do you know The Lemon Song by Led Zeppelin?"

The Antennae Man nodded. He leaned back and said something to the other band members.

The girl in pink turned to the crowd. "Are you ready for some Zeppelin?" she shouted. There may have been a response from the crowd. It may have been something like a cheer. I was focused on getting onto the stage. It seemed ridiculously high. Somehow Tony was already up there and Antennae Man had found him a bass.

I turned around and gave a little hop and landed sitting on the stage. I let myself flop backward between the mike stand and one of the monitors. I rolled onto my left side and crawled forwards until my knees were fully on the stage. When I stood up, Tony handed me a piece of paper. "What's this," I said.

"It's the words," he said. "Just in case."

"Good thinking," I peered at the paper. "You've got very neat printing," I said. "Tony, are you sure these are all the words? There aren't very many of them. What am I supposed to sing when they run out?"

"Don't worry about it," he said. "Do you remember the song?"

"Yeah, I think so," I said.

"Well, just ramble and repeat yourself a bit."

"Of course!" I said. "It's rock and roll! Rock on, baby!" I peered out at the lights. "Pink Girl! Give me my mike! I've got some lemons to squeeze!"

>> Farts Like Gold: 20

Brendan stepped behind the tarp and stood under the unoccupied shower. He glanced at Lucy. She was definitely naked. She stood under the spray with her head bent forward and the water pounding on the back of her neck. Her arms hung by her sides. Hunched over as she was, he couldn't entirely see her breasts. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. They were amazingly white, what he could see of them. She was mostly pale all over. Just her arms and shoulders and face and chest were tanned. She had bands of redness where the tops of her rubber boots had rubbed on her calves. And similar marks on her hips from the planting bags. Her hair obscured her face so he couldn't tell if she could see him looking at her or not.

He turned away from her and scrubbed himself down. He shouldn't really be looking at her anyway. We're both just people, he told himself. There doesn't need to be anything sexual about this.

Damn, she's got beautiful legs, he thought to himself. He involuntarily snuck another quick peek and immediately regretted it. She was staring at him and untangling her hair with her fingers under the spray. He could see her breasts clearly this time. There was a mole on her left breast, at about two o'clock from the nipple.

Brendan gave a wry half-smile. "Sorry," he said.

Lucy shook her head as if to say "don't worry about it."

Brendan picked up the shampoo bottle and thrust his head under the spray. He squeezed a dollop into his hand and put the bottle down again. He washed his hair and then reached for the soap. He rubbed it under his armpits and over his arms. He didn't feel comfortable facing Lucy, and he didn't feel comfortable facing directly away from her, so he stood facing away from her at 45 degree angle. He washed his legs and his feet. He felt awkward about washing his butt in front of her but it had to be done. He turned so he was fully side on to her which meant that she could see his penis. But rather that than see him with his hand jammed between his ass cheeks.

Besides, it wasn't like he was getting an erection. He felt obscurely proud of that small victory. But then immediately regretted the thought. As soon as he lathered up his scrotum he could feel the pressure start to build up. No need to panic yet. He just had to turn away slightly and think about something unpleasant.

What am I doing in this shower with Lucy Lison, anyway? he thought to himself. Oh right, the quad got stuck. Ended up battling for an hour to get it out. God damn rain. Ah that's better. Think about the weather. That'll make you wilt. The rain sure is loud on that roof of the tent. Nights like this are great for sex. With everyone's tent so close together it's about the only time you get any real privacy. Ah shit! That's the wrong thing to think about.

Brendan turned a bit more away from Lucy and stuck his head under the water again. He rubbed his face furiously and thought of the quad. He glanced down at himself. He wasn't exactly wilting but he wasn't growing either.

Joe came into the dryshack. "Brendan, you in there?"

Brendan didn't say anything, he just glanced over his shoulder at Lucy.

"Anybody in the shower?"

Lucy called out, "I'll be out in a minute."

"Oh, it's you," said Joe. "Just looking for Brendan. See you at dinner."

"See you."

Brendan stood frozen for a couple of minutes. Well at least that made me wilt, he thought.

He quickly rinsed himself off and gathered up his soap and shampoo and went back to the changing area. Lucy followed him.

"Lucy," he said, "would you mind waiting until I've changed. There's just not that much room here."

"No problem," she said. She stepped back around the tarp. Brendan could hear as she stepped back under the shower. He put on his camp jeans and a sweatshirt and a pair of recycled socks and stepped into his spare boots. He pulled on his rain jacket and picked up all his muddy clothes and ran back to his tent. He dumped everything under the tarp and ran all the way back to the cook shack.

Joe was doing tallies at the office table.

"Sorry," said Brendan. "I got a bit stuck today. Totally covered in mud. And thought I'd have a shower."

"Yeah, no worries," said Joe, "I thought you must have been in there. Must have just missed you."

>> Farts Like Gold: 19

"Naked and gorgeous," said Amber.

"Fantastic!" said Brendan. "Mind if I join you?"

Kathy poked her head around the tarp and stuck her tongue out. She held the tarp in place in front of her.

"Not unless you give us better land," said Amber.

"How about if I just give you a towel?" Brendan held out the towel to Kathy. She grabbed it with her teeth and shook it like a dog. She pulled her head back inside the changing area and flicked the towel at Amber. Amber took it and draped if over the tarp.

"Lucy," she called out, "Brendan brought your towel."

"Thanks."

"I've got your sweats as well," Brendan shouted. He sat on a stump just beside the pallet to wait for his turn in the shower. After a couple of minutes, Amber and Kathy came out from behind the tarp. Amber wore jeans, a tee shirt, and a thick polar fleece. Kathy wore a pair of big cotton parachute pants. She liked to think of them as her MC Hammer pants. She also wore three oversize hooded cotton jackets in yellow, green, and purple.

Lucy stayed in the shower and let the water warm her.

From where Brendan sat, he could make out the edge of her silhouette against the tarp wall of the shower. "You almost done in there?" he called out.

"This is the first time I've been warm all day. I'm not going anywhere." said Lucy. "You're welcome to join me, if you want."

"Oh, come on," said Brendan. "I've got work to do. Hurry up."

"I'm not moving," said Lucy. "I hope you realise this isn't a come on. But I'm still cold and the water's still warm. You can shower beside me if you want. We've seen each other naked before. It's no big deal."

Brendan shook his head. So far no one else had joined the queue for the shower. He looked down at his hands. They were caked with mud to the elbows. "Ah, fuck it." He stood up and rubbed his forearms together to knock as much of the dried mud off as he could. Then he rubbed his forearms against the legs of his jeans. He stepped out of his boots onto the pallet and stepped behind the tarp into the changing area.

"I'm coming in," he called out.

He took off his shirt and dumped it on a pile by the tent wall. He stepped on the toes of his socks one by one pulled his feet out of them and kicked them next to his shirt. Then he took off his jeans and underwear and added them to the pile.

"Last chance," he said.

>> Farts Like Gold: 18

It took Lucy, Alistair and Cameron 40 minutes to walk back to camp. It had been raining all afternoon and it continued to piss rain on them the whole way back. The three of them walked straight into the dry shack. Wet socks and rain gear hung on lines everywhere. It was a bit like a nightmare where you are lost in a hall of mirrors. Only the mirrors are lines of filthy, muddy sopping wet clothes. Still, even if they were mirrors, they would still reflect pretty much the same picture - more sopping wet and filthy clothing slowly moving in response to external forces around them.

In the centre of the dry shack was an overworked homemade iron stove stoked to the point of red-hotness surrounded by a cluster of filthy planters. Lucy, Alistair and Cameron pressed their way to the inner circle of warmth. Other drier planters made way for them.

All of the planters stood staring at the stove. Cameron repeated "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" over and over again under his breathe and hopped gently up and down. Alistair jammed his hands down his bib overalls and inside the crotch of his pants. "Sweet Mother of grapefruit! My God, my balls are warm!" he said.

Lucy stood there with her shoulders stooped, staring at the stove. She was shivering. After a few minutes she got the energy to hold her arms out towards the fire. Raising her arms made the sides of her body suddenly cold. She dropped them again and shuffled closer to the fire. She raised her right arm slowly above her head and turned carefully to face her right side towards the stove. She stayed in that position for about a couple of minutes and then turned so her back was facing the stove. She dropped her right arm and raised her head. Water dripped from her hair on to her face. She sputtered the wetness from her lips and raised her left arm. She turned slowly and faced her left side to the stove.

Brendan came into the dry shack with an armload of wood. It was wet so he piled it up just to the side of the stove. He was caked in mud from the chest down. His face was speckled with mud. "Damn fine weather for ducks," he said.

"Or loons," said Alistair.

Brendan stuck his head under a line of wet socks and grimaced as they dripped down his neck. "Anyone showering?" he asked.

"Kathy and I are next," called out Amber. "There's no one after us though."

Brendan looked at Lucy. "You want to join them? I can wait."

She nodded, her left arm still raised towards the tent ceiling.

"I'm going to get my stuff," said Brendan. "Do you want me to grab your towel?"

Lucy nodded. She dropped her arm. "If you're going by Kent's tent, could you grab my sweats as well?"

"No problem." He backed out of the tent.

"I think I'll shower as well," said Alistair. "You?" he asked Cameron.

"Too cold."

Lucy took off her rain jacket. She shoved some socks over to make room and hung it on a line near the fire. She walked over to where Amber and Kathy were, stooping under lines of clothes on the way. They stood on a wooden pallet on the near side of the tarp separating the shower from the rest of the tent. She undid the bib of her rainpants and shoved them down past her boots. She stepped out of them on to the pallet beside the other girls. Her foot slid slightly because of the wetness of her socks. She took her socks off. One by one she wringed brown water out of them and then draped them over the top of her boots.

Two planters, Matt and Paul, came out from behind the tarp where they had been showering. They wore trousers and had bare feet. They carried the rest of their clothes in their hands. The three girls carefully traded places with them, as all five struggled to stay out of the mud and on the comparatively dry pallet.

Once behind the tarp, the girls started to undress.

Lucy stuck her head around the edge of the tarp. "Matt, if you see Brendan can you ask him to give me a yell so I can grab my towel."

"No worries."

The shower had three faucets nailed to the wooden frame of the tent. Plastic pipes provided the water. The shower heads were plumbing caps that had holes drilled in them to allow the water to spray out. One of the faucets was clogged. Lucy stood under one of the others. Amber and Kathy shared the remaining shower.

"Can I borrow your soap?" asked Lucy.

"Sure," said Kathy. "Just a sec."

Lucy stood under the shower and let the water warm her as she waited for Kathy and Amber to soap themselves up.

Kathy stepped over to Lucy and handed her the bar of soap.

"Thanks."

She rubbed the soap quickly over herself, then rinsed it off in the spray and stepped over to hand it back to Kathy.

The other girls finished their shower and started to get dressed. Brendan shook the tarp. "Are ya naked?" he asked.

>> Farts Like Gold: 17

"Recordings," I said. "Don't you have any recordings of your band?"

"No," said Tony. "There was a girl in our band who didn't believe in them. She always said, 'Music is all about the moment. There's a reason they both begin with the letter M, she told me.'"

"Profound."

"Her name was Tracy Davenport. Come to think of it, she didn't like any music at all. I can't believe I forgot that. I told you it gave me amnesia, playing music."

"Maybe it's all part of the 'music as moment' thing," I said.

"Tracy Davenport hated almost everything she ever heard," said Tony. "She must really have known music. Maybe I really was good."

"Do you remember what she said about your music?" I asked.

"No. Just that music was supposed to be something you participated in. Recordings were artificial. She once told me, 'Music should be played, not heard, Tony.' I think she may have been some kind of musical genius."

"But nothing about how you played specifically?"

Tony leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. He counted silently on his fingers to ten. "No. Nothing I can remember. Whether she did or not, I don't remember anything so either way it amounts to the same thing."

I watched the girl in pink. There were two mike stands. She was standing in front of the shorter one. The coffee was working. When I looked at Tony I could hear him perfectly. When I looked at the girl in pink, I could hear her perfectly. "Check," she was saying. "Check, check."

I looked at Tony. He wasn't saying anything. He was drinking beer, but I could hear distinct slurping sounds. I looked at the girl again. She was 20 metres away and I could hear every word across the crowded bar.

"Good evening," she said. "We're Easter Omelette and we're the house band here at the Commercial Hotel. It's open mike night tonight. Phil and the boys are here to warm you up and keep things rolling but it's your night. We've got a few names on the list, but we've still got some space left so why not join us. We can always fit a few more folks on the stage."

I looked back at Tony. "You have to play tonight," I said.

"I haven't played in years," he said. "And I don't have a bass. No one's going to loan me a bass. I mean, everyone here looks nice and all, but they're not going to loan me an instrument. There's being nice and there's being nice, you know. Besides I don't know any of the music."

"How do you know that?" I asked. "They haven't even started playing yet? It's open mike night. You can play whatever you want. It's just a big jam session."

"You are much more entertaining than I expected," he said. "There must be something about breaking a hand that makes people more interesting. You and Alvin -- both very entertaining."

"I am completely wired!" I said. "I don't know why but some mix of the drugs and the beer and the coffee means that my hearing is like a dog's, only better. If you play tonight, I'll be able to tell you whether you're any good or not. Absolutely."

"But I haven't played in years," said Tony.

"It's the perfect test!" I said. "If you are a musical genius, it won't matter. I guarantee I'll be able to tell. Look at me! Look at the way I'm vibrating! I'm a human tuning fork!" I held up my hand. "My hand's even full of metal! There must be a reason for all of this!"

Tony shook his head.

"Do it for me," I said. "Four days ago, I was in a camp. I was making good money. I had friends. I had somewhere to sleep. I had meals waiting for me when I got home. I had a girlfriend. I had a life and a purpose. Now I'm drunk and stoned and broke and wired on caffeine and my hand's busted and I have no idea what I'm going to do. Give me a reason for being. Let me tell you whether you should be a musician or not."

"I don't know, Kent..."

"Tony, what are you doing now? What's your job? You never told me that."

The band had started playing now. I didn't recognise the song, but then I wasn't really paying attention to it. I was focused on Tony.

"I work for Satfield Gas," he said. "I track what leases we're working on and who we need to pay for them and how much. It's an interesting job. You get some real characters sometimes on the other end of the phone. Just the other day I was talking to somebody who was a real live rodeo cowboy."

"Is it as exciting as being a rock and roll star?" I asked. "You've got to give it a chance, man. If not for you, then for me. Just for this night. I need to have a purpose. Let me be the one who tells you if you're any good."

Tony looked at the stage. He looked into his beer. Then he looked at my hand. "All right," he said. "If you can get me a bass, I'll go up on stage."

"No problem," I said. It seemed a fair deal. I do something for him. He does something for me. Then I do something for him. And then he does something for me. And then... well... It's all a big circle of life.

I looked around the bar. I couldn't see an unattended bass. Maybe there was a music store still open on Whyte Avenue. But that wouldn't work. I couldn't afford to buy a bass. I drank some coffee. There had to be basses here. It was open mike night. The place was lousy with aspiring musicians.

"You've got to help me out," I said to Tony. "My hearing is perfect but my eyesight is a bit fuzzy. Are there any basses actually in this bar."

Tony stood up. He turned around slowly. He sat down. "There's a few," he said. "Obviously, the skinny guy on stage is playing one."

I looked at the stage. "No good," I said. "I can't see past the girl with the pink head. Anything on stage might as well be invisible."

"Well, that guy has one," he jerked his head in the direction of a kid who looked about 16 with hair down to the middle of his back.

I shook my head. "He's an adolescent," I said.

"True," said Tony.

"An adolescent male," I said. "Never fuck with an adolescent male. No matter what species. They're all testosterone and growing muscle and they heal quick. If he takes offence he'll either kill us or try to mate with us. You see the same thing with bears, moose, and mice. Adolescent males are bad news."

"There are lots of guitar cases in the bar," said Tony. "But there's a very good chance they have guitars in them. Some of them might contain a bass I suppose. I wonder if there's some way to tell. Maybe by where they put the stickers or maybe there's some secret sign that a real bass player would be able to identify them by."

"You can't think that way," I said. "You are a real bass player. If there was some sign you could sense it. I'm sure of it."

"All I know is I can't tell," said Tony.

"Well, we'll just have to ask them," I said. "Get me another coffee. I need to be crystal clear when I speak to the masses. It might be an idea to get another pitcher of beer as well. Something's happened to mine and yours is looking mighty low."

Tony went to the bar to get the drinks. I went over to the stage and waved my broken hand at the girl in the pink. She winked and gave the clipboard at her feet a gentle kick. I picked it up. There were two columns, one headed by "name" and the other by "instrument". I wrote down "Kent" under the "name" heading and "Vox" under the "instrument" heading. Then I crossed it out and wrote "Bass". I put it down, then picked it up again. I crossed out "Bass" and wrote "Vox" again. I put the clipboard down just as the girl in Pink finished singing. There was a smattering of applause and one or two whistles.

"Thanks," she said. "Don't go away. I think we have a special treat for you." She bobbed down onto her heels and glanced at the clipboard.

"Kent," she said. "Are you ready to join us on stage?"

Her hair was painfully bright. Her corset was just as bad. I found myself staring between the two until I realised I was peering straight into her cleavage.

"What do you want to sing?" she asked.

>> Farts Like Gold: 16

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm a little wired."

"Hey! Honestly! It's no problem," said Tony. "It's just nice to have someone to talk to." Tony took a drink of his beer. "This is a great place. I bet Alvin would have loved it. Hey! There's a band! Cool!"

The band was setting up. An antennae-thin bald man was awkwardly adjusting a mike stand with a beer bottle clenched in his right hand. A girl with bright pink hair shrugged out of an army jacket and tossed it on of the amps. She was wearing a pink bustier and a black and white polka-dot skirt.

"I used to be in a band," Tony said. "It was ages ago. Back in school. I have no idea if we were any good or not. I was too nervous to judge. I don't just mean when we were playing in front of people. I was nervous all the time. I played bass. I might have been terrible or I might have been a genius. I might have been better than Tony Levin. I just don't know. Too nervous. Every time up I picked up the bass I would just blank out. It was like temporary memory loss."

"Didn't anyone else give you any clue about whether you were any good or not?" I asked. "No one ever said anything like, 'You suck!' or 'You rock!'?"

"No, not really. We were too young and they were all too polite. I mean, everyone said I was good but I didn't really trust them because I had no idea if they were any good or not. People who really care about music have such strong views, don't you think? I mean it seems the only way you can trust anyone who knows anything about music is if they hate most of it. I always find it a struggle to really hate a song. It all sounds pretty good to me. I mean, I know I'm supposed to hate Celine Dion, but, you know, sometimes her stuff is kind of pleasant. But the people who seem to care about music hate Celine Dion. They hate tons of songs. And usually they're far more interested in talking about what they don't like than what they do. So, because I didn't really hate anything, I didn't trust my own judgement when it comes to music. And most of the people I knew back then didn't seem to hate anything either. So I can't trust them."

I was beginning to lose focus. I drank some more of coffee. It had cooled down. I could feel the caffeine providing a gentle hum to the foggy organ that was my brain. I was grateful that the girl in the band had chosen a bright pink motif. It gave my eyes an easy focus point.

"Well, I think this band tonight is going to be fantastic," I said. "It's pink."

"Pink?"

"Pink," I repeated. "The band is pink. Look". I gestured at the girl on the stage. For some reason there was a glass of beer in my hand. Some of the beer spilled on the ground. I carefully put the glass down and examined my hand. How had the beer glass got there?

"Oh," said Tony. "I thought Pink was the name of the band. But you just mean the girl is wearing pink."

"And she has a pink head," I pointed out.

"I think it might be a wig," said Tony.

"We're not debating the reality of her hair!" I said, possibly louder than I meant to. "The significant aspect of the top of that woman is that it's coloured pink."

I looked around the table. Both of my coffee cups were empty. "I need another coffee," I said. "Do you want one?"

"No thanks."

"Back in a second." I brought the empty cups back to the bar. "I'd like a couple of refills," I told the barman. The bar was getting louder. It was getting harder to hear individual sounds. Maybe more coffee would help bring some clarity to the noise. I needed to have my senses sharp when the band began playing. I brought the coffees back to the table one at a time.

>> Farts Like Gold: 15

Brendan stepped off the stump on to a log. He walked along it for a few metres then hopped off on to the ground and headed back to the quad.

Lucy, Alistair, and Cameron kept planting

It was Friday night and I was in the the Commercial Hotel. I walked up to the bar and looked around as I waited to be served. I suddenly realised I hadn't phoned anyone in town yet. I'd been here for two days and hadn't tried to get in touch with anyone. I looked around the bar. If anyone I knew was in town there was a good chance they'd show up here. I wasn't sure whether I was hoping to spot someone I knew or just the opposite.

It was fairly early still, about eight o'clock. The band hadn't started playing yet. Both pool tables were busy but there were no coins on the edge of the table. The Commercial swings between biker-bar, student bar, business-suit bar, and neighbourhood pub depending on the season, time of day, and phase of the moon. It hadn't quite figured out what it was going to be tonight. Or, at least, I couldn't tell.

The bartender came over and stood in front of me across the bar. He had long hair and a beard with one long thin braid dripping down from his chin.

"Can I get a pitcher of Traditional and a glass, please?" I said.

He nodded, put a glass in front of me, and poured the pitcher. I gave him a twenty dollar bill and he brought back a five and four loonies. I left one of the loonies on the bar, put the other three in my pocket and the fivespot in my wallet. I tucked the glass under my right armpit and carried the pitcher over to an empty table with a view of the door and the stage.

I felt unsettled. My hand hurt and my body was wondering why it hadn't been planting trees for the last couple of days. My metabolism was still racing but my body hadn't had much to do except heal my broken hand. I was antsy. I took a couple of percocet and washed them down with beer.

I sat there and stared at the pitcher in front of me. It might be a bad idea to drink this much beer while popping serious pain killers, I thought to myself. Sure enough, about fifteen minutes later I was feeling seriously drunk. This was a bad sign considering I'd only had one glass so far. If Tony didn't show up I could be in trouble. At least my hand didn't hurt any more.

I lurched to my feet and went to the bar.

"Two coffees please, with milk and sugar," I said. I decided the milk and sugar might help as well. Calorie consumption is key when you're trying to avoid getting completely plastered.

The bartender put the coffees on a tray and put the tray on the bar in front of me.

"Who's your invisible friend?" he asked.

"What?" I asked.

"He nodded at the two coffees and then at my table with the almost full pitcher of beer.

"Oh, both the coffees are for me," I said. "But I am planning to share the pitcher."

He nodded. "Want another glass, then?"

"No thanks," I said. "He might not show up."

I grabbed the tray with my left hand and balanced it with my right arm. It took definite focus to make it to the table without getting sidetracked.

I drank the two coffees sitting at my table, staring intensely at the door. If Tony didn't show up I was going to have to drink this pitcher by myself. It might not be the best of ideas, but a man's got an obligation when he buys a pitcher of beer.

Tony showed up when I was about half way into my third glass of beer. I waved as he walked past the pool tables and held the pitcher aloft. It felt surprisingly light.

Tony waved back, but instead of coming straight to the table he stopped at the bar. I was distracted by the lightness of the pitcher so it took me a couple of minutes to realise what he was up to. I put the foolishly light pitcher down on the table and ran to the bar. I was too late to prevent him from asking for another pitcher but I wasn't too late to add a couple of coffees to the order.

"Two coffees?" Tony asked.

"I just don't want to be inattentive," I said.

"Yeah, you nodded off a bit on the bus, now that you mention it," he said. "Maybe you have narcolepsy. I worked with a guy who had that. He used to fall asleep in meetings all the time when I was talking to him."

"No," I said. "It's not that. It's the drugs. I took a couple of painkillers and the beer was making me dozy."

"Well, good to see you," he said. "How's your hand? I see you still don't have a cast. Maybe it wasn't really broken. Men have a much lower pain tolerance than women."

"No," I said. "It's definitely broken. Should we sit down?"

I tucked Tony's glass under my armpit and carried the pitcher back to the table. He brought my coffees over. Without thinking about it, I filled both of our glasses from his pitcher and took a drink.

"I thought you were going to have coffee," he said.

"Oh shit!" I said. I took a big slurp from one of the coffees. It was hot. I turned to the side and spewed the coffee out on the carpet, then drained my beer. "Ah, fuck it!" I said. Must not panic. Keep things simple, that's the key.

"You are one entertaining guy," said Tony. "You should be in the circus."

One of the bouncers came over to our table and looked us up and down. I smiled and tried not to vibrate or lurch.

"The coffee was hot," Tony said. "He has a broken hand."

The bouncer took a step closer.

"I think he has narcolepsy," added Tony.

The bouncer looked at Tony. He looked at me. I smiled.

"Just don't spit anything else on the floor," the bouncer said. He walked back to his position by the door.

>> Farts Like Gold: 14

They caught up with the boys near the back of their land.

"How's it going, fellahs?" said Brendan.

Cameron was planting along the treeline. He just glanced over to Brendan and nodded, and kept planting.

Alistair stopped and drank from a water bottle he pulled out of his back bag. "It's not a bad day. It ain't cake, but it ain't bad," he said.

Brendan smiled. "Sweet!" he said. "I'm always happy when people have good land." He tossed his shovel a few metres behind the group. It made a couple of lazy circles in the air and thunked into the ground blade-first.

"I didn't say it was good land." Alistair put the bottle back in his back bag and slipped a tree in between the roots of a stump.

"If it ain't bad, it's good," said Brendan. He stomped on his shovel to stick it firmly in the ground. He put the loop of his checking cord around it. He stretched the cord out and walked in a slow circle around the shovel, dropping a little piece of pink flagging every time he spotted a planted tree.

The other three kept planting.

Brendan checked each tree carefully. He talked to himself and to the trees as he checked them. "How are ya doing, little fellah? You're a nice looking little sprucey. How's your friend here? Oh, she's not looking perfect. Bit of a leaner. I think one of those bad boys stomped a bit too hard on you. They're bad boys, aren't they?"

When he was done, he sat down on a stump and wrote up the plot in a notebook he pulled from his inside vest pocket. By the time he was done, the three planters had turned around at the back of the land and were almost abreast of him again. Brendan stood up on the stump.

"Not bad," he said. "Good spacing. Eight trees. One leaner. Cameron, I think you might be kicking a bit too close sometimes. I'll check some more on the way back. In general, it looks pretty good, though."

>> Farts Like Gold: 13

The quad kicked up a cloud of dust as Brendan and Lucy drove off. Kathy turned her face to the side. She and Amber followed the quad.

The planting bags meant that there wasn't much room on the seat for two people. Brendan rode standing up until they got to the end of the block. Lucy braced her hands on her thighs and moved forward and back as the quad went over bumps.

"Can you shove back at all, Lucy?" asked Brendan as they left the block and turned onto the cutline which joined it with the next one. "My legs are killing me."

Lucy pushed her feet against the pegs and forced herself back against the bags. Brendan sat down on the seat. Lucy reached up and grabbed hold of the Brendan's belt loops on either side of his waist. The quad trail down the cutline was smooth. Lucy rested her forehead against Brendan's back.

The first block they came to was finished and pretty much cleaned out. There were still some planters in the second block but Brendan noticed everyone was closing fast. He stood up as they drove through that block. Lucy continued to hold onto his belt loops. He sat down as the block turned to cutline, and then stood up as they went into the third block. He drove to the far edge of the block and stopped by a tree cache sheltered in the trees.

Alistair and Cameron were about 50 metres from the road following the treeline. Lucy watched as they bobbed up and down sticking trees in the ground. As the quad came to a stop, she pulled on Brendan's belt loops and stood up on the pegs behind him. Brendan braced himself with the handlebars as Lucy leaned into him and swung her leg over the seat. She grabbed one of the bungie cords on the back and leaned back with her full weight to unhook it. She pulled her planting bags off the pile and yanked her shovel out from beneath the others. She jammed her shovel in the ground, and took her planting bags to the tree cache. She reached under the tarp and dragged one of the boxes out with one hand. She knelt by the box, opened it up and began packing bundles of seedlings into her bags.

Brendan unhooked the bungies on the front of the quad and got out Lucy's daypack. He strapped Amber and Kathy's daypacks back in and then walked to the back of the quad. He pulled Lucy's water bottle off the pile and put it and her day pack by her shovel on the side of the road. He tied up the back rack and then walked to the side of the cache.

Lucy had finished bagging up. She shrugged to lift up her bags as she cinched the belt tight around her waist. Brendan picked up the empty box she'd left and broke it down as he stepped out of the forest into the block.

"Ready to meet your new partners." He said.

"You know me," Lucy said. "Always keen to make new friends."

Brendan headed off towards where Alistair and Cameron were planting. Lucy walked off at a slight angle, her eyes scanning the ground. Brendan looked back as he heard Lucy scuff the ground with her foot. He shook his head as she threw the shovel into the ground, bent over and slid a seedling into the cut the shovel made as she twisted it slightly and pulled it out.

Lucy stepped forward as she straightened, looking for the next place to plant a tree. "I'm not going to dead-walk all the way back there. We'll meet up when they're on the way back."

"You'll end up with a back wedge," Brendan said. "Plus I've got to go set up Kathy and Amber."

Lucy planted another tree. She looked up and smiled. "It'll go faster if you spot their line for me," she said. She bent over and planted another tree. "Besides, Amber and Kathy won't be at the cache yet. They're walking." She planted another tree.

Brendan laughed and walked a few feet ahead of Lucy and stood by one of the trees on the outside planting line left by Alistair or Cameron. He couldn't tell who was on the outside from where they were. "Well, plant fast," he said.

Lucy didn't say anything. She walked ahead three steps, kicked the duff away with her fourth step, and slammed her shovel into the ground. It didn't go in quite far enough so she stomped on the kickplate with her foot and bent over with a tree in her hand as her foot slid off the shovel. She slid the tree in along the shovel blade and moved on. Brendan kept pace with her, watching for Alistair and Cameron's trees as he walked. They went at a decent walking pace. Brendan kept moving, pointing out the trees. Lucy made quick strides between planting spots, pausing every three or four steps to clear a spot and stick a tree in the ground. Every now and then Brendan would dip down to check how well the trees were planted.

>> Farts Like Gold: 12

I ordered a coffee and watched all the clean and shiny people walk by. I idly reached into my pocket and pulled out the receipt for the jeans I had just bought. Fifty dollars was a lot of money when you no longer had a job. I wondered how long it would be before Workman's Comp kicked in. I was pretty sure I didn't have enough weeks for unemployment benefits yet.

But then my coffee arrived and a girl smiled at me as she walked by and it just didn't seem to matter anymore.

Brendan spotted Lucy, Amber, and Kathy sitting at the cache and rode over on his quad. The girls had broken down their boxes and were lying back in the sun. Kathy had rested her head on her water jug and had her feet up on a log by the cache. She wore orange rubber boots and two pairs of thick cotton tights with a torn flouncy mini skirt that had once been bright ladybug red.

"...looking for the love getaway..." she sang.

Lucy and Amber lay on the pile of flattened boxes with their knees up. Amber got to her feet as Brendan pulled up on the quad.

"You lovely ladies done?" he asked. He looked around the cache. Trees had been planted exactly the minimum distance apart all around the edges of the cache and up and down the road. "I'm guessing you managed to bag out all right."

"Lucy helped us out," she said. "We never would have bagged out if it wasn't for her." Lucy smiled.

Kathy waved her arms back and forth above her chest "...the love shack is a little old place where we can get to-gether..." she sang.

Brendan got off the quad and pulled their three shovels from the ground and lay them on the back rack of the quad. He picked up Kathy's plantings bags from beside her. He put them on the back on top of the shovels, then added Lucy and Amber's bags. He piled their water bottles on top of them and strapped the unwieldy pile down with three bungee cords. When he grabbed Kathy's water bottle, she raised her head up and then let it fall on the ground behind her.

Lucy stood up. She walked over to the front of the quad and put her day pack on the front rack. Amber did the same. Kathy turned her head to the side and watched all this from the ground. She reached beside her and grabbed her day pack with one hand. She threw it awkwardly to Amber. Amber caught it and put it on the front rack and strapped it down. "Where are we off to?" she asked.

"Not far," said Brendan. "Two or three bends."

"It's too bad you don't have a Chrysler as big as a whale," said Kathy. She got to her feet as Brendan pulled a map out of the inside left pocket of his vest. He unfolded the map on the seat of the quad. The girls crowded around him.

"Just walk down this road." He pointed back the way he had come. "go straight through the next two blocks and stop at the second cache. I'll meet you there and set you up. Lucy you're going a bit further. I'm going to put you in with Alistair and Cameron."

Lucy nodded and started walking. Amber and Kathy followed. Brendan rode past them on the quad and pulled up beside Lucy.

"Actually, I might as well run you down now and double back to meet the girls. Do you want a ride?" he asked.

"Thanks." Brendan stood up and leaned forward over the handlebars. Lucy stepped on one of the pegs, grabbed the armpit of his vest with one hand and stepped between Brendan and the pile of bags and water bottles to sit on the quad.

Brendan turned around to Amber and Kathy. "Sorry girls," he said, "I've only got room for one."

"Should have got a Chrysler," said Kathy.

>> Farts Like Gold: 11

I woke up once during the night and took another percocet. I didn't get out of bed until noon. The first thing I did was to take another bath. After that I spent a good fifteen minutes shaving with my left hand. It was surprisingly easy if I just took it slow. It felt a little awkward but somehow it was calming just to concentrate on the simple motions needed.

I had clean underwear and socks and a clean tee shirt but that was it. My jeans, in particular were filthy. I tidied up all my stuff and went downstairs.

"Morning," I said to the guy at the desk.

"Morning," he replied.

"I'd like to keep the room until at least Saturday, if that's okay," I said.

"No problem."

It was bright outside and warm enough for me to take my jacket off. The traffic and the crowds of people were a bit of a shock. I couldn't get over how shiny everyone looked. All of the woman looked absolutely beautiful. A woman walked by in a purple skirt with bare legs. They gleamed like pink stainless steel. I shook my head and tried to concentrate on the cars driving by. There was a red Volkswagon Golf and a blue Honda Civic. They were shiny as well and very small.

I had breakfast in Uncle Albert's - pancakes, bacon and eggs, toast, and hash browns with coffee and orange juice.

I crossed the street and looked for a new pair of jeans at Army and Navy. They were all a bit too cheap and crap looking though. I felt I needed a bit of a splurge. I checked out a couple more stores and ended up buying a pair of black Levi's at Divine Decadance for $50. I put it on the visa.

"Actually, do you mind if I change into them here and wear them out?" I asked the girl behind the desk.

"No problem," she said. She was pulled the jeans out of the bag she had just put them in and cut the tags off with a pair of orange-handled scissors.

"Thanks," I said. I went into the changing room and emptied the pockets of my old jeans onto the chair: wallet, swiss army knife, lighter, room key, and a few twigs and bits of moss. I took off my old jeans, gave my thighs and calves a good long scratch, then put on my new black jeans. They felt and smelled great. I put everything from the chair but the twigs and moss into my pockets and flung open the curtain of the changing room with a fourish.

The girl behind the counter looked a bit startled but then smiled. She gave me a bag for my old jeans and I went out onto the street.

I wandered around a bit, soaking up the sunshine until I found a quiet coffee shop with an empty table on the sidewalk.

>> Farts Like Gold: 10

It was early enough in the day that I didn't have to wait too long at the hospital. The doctor confirmed what they told me in Fort St. John. I needed surgery.

"The good news is that we managed to book you in this afternoon," the doctor told me.

"Great, how long will I be in hospital?"

"You should be out tonight," he said. "They'll cut open your hand, straighten the bone, and screw a plate into it to give it some strength while it heals. Then they'll sew you up and you'll be on your way."

"How long until I can go back to work?" I asked.

"Well, you can probably start using the hand as long as you're careful in about a week. By which I mean, opening doors, eating and drinking - that kind of thing. It will still hurt though. And you should be careful with it. The plate won't be a strong as your bone was before the accident and you don't want to break it as well. I wouldn't go back to planting for about six weeks if you're smart."

After surgery, they doctor told me again to take it easy for a while and prescribed some percocet for the pain. I got the prescription filled in the pharmacy in the hospital. I took one right away. It made me a bit woozy, but killed the pain. I was exhausted now. I tried to think who was in town that I could call but I couldn't come up with anyone that I had the energy to talk to. I wandered up Whyte Avenue and checked into the Strathcona Hotel.

I dumped my stuff in my room and walked down the hall to one of the bathrooms. The room had one wooden chair and a bathtub. I sat on the chair while the tub filled with water. My hand was starting to hurt again but I was worried about falling asleep in the tub so I didn't take another pill.

Once the tub was full I got out of my clothes and stepped into the water. I lay in the tub for about half an hour, just staring at the ceiling with my right hand on the edge of the tub. I bent my legs and pulled my knees out of the water. My skin was getting a bit pruny and about a dozen thorns were working their way to the surface. They were like little bristles sticking out of little red patches on my skin. I leaned forward and tried to scrape them out of my skin with the fuckyou fingernail on my left hand. That didn't work too well, but I found that if I pressed down on either side of the thorn with two of my fingers , the thorn would ooze out as if by magic. Playing with my thorns kept me occupied for another half an hour.

I washed my hair with my left hand, got out of the tube and dried myself off. I walked back to my room wearing my towel and took another percocet. I went to bed naked and fell asleep with my right hand on a pillow outside the covers.

>> Farts Like Gold: 9

He stopped off along the way to piss Afterwards, he washed his hands with the bleach bottle. He dropped his daypack near one of the quads and ducked under the flap of the tent by the cookbus. April came down the steps with a pot of scrambled eggs.

"Good morning, beautiful," Brendan said. "What's on the menu?"

"Breakfast burritos."

"Fantastic!"

There were seven or eight others in the cookshack. Brendan poured himself a coffee and grabbed a couple of muffins from the pail that Cassie had put out. He went to the staff table and sat down. Joe came in from the back of the tent just as Brendan was sitting down.

"Morning Brendan."

"Morning Joe."

Brendan took off his toque and scratched his head. "How are we doing for setup this morning?"

"Not too bad," said Joe. "We'll need to set up the block 52, but it should be quick. Should be able to do most of it from the truck. Everybody's got land until about noon."

"Yeah, you told me last night."

Lucy came in from the back of the cookshack, poured herself a coffee and sat on the storage box near the serving counter. She started rolling herself a smoke.

Cassandra came down the steps with a box of lunch treats and walked past her. Lucy stuck her hand in the box and took out a wax paper bag containing two brownies.

"Hey!" said Cassie.

"What?" asked Lucy.

"Wait 'til I put them on the table."

"Sorry."

"And do you have to sit there? It's hard to get by."

"I always sit here in the mornings," said Lucy.

Cassie put the lunch treats on the table. As soon as it touched the table all the planters nearby grabbed wax paper bags from inside the box. Cassie stepped back and turned to Lucy.

"Sorry. Just starting the day out by being bitchy," she said. "Give me a smoke."

Lucy handed her the cigarette she had just rolled.

"Smokeddey smoke smoke smoke," said Cassie. She sat down on the storage box next to Lucy. "Kent hasn't called yet, if you were wondering."

"Didn't think he would. Probably won't call until tonight at the earliest," said Lucy. She dumped some tobacco onto another rolling paper.

Cassie stood up. "I wish to God you hadn't broken his hand," she said. She went back into the cookbus.

Lucy watched her go, then went back to rolling the cigarette. She licked one edge of the rolling paper and rubbed it back and forth in her palm with one hand. She lit the smoke and leaned back against the fabric of the tent.

>> Farts Like Gold: 8

Half an hour later, Brendan's watch alarm went off. He wormed his arm out from inside his sleeping bag, reached into the netting above his head without opening his eyes and pushed the button to turn it off. He drew his hand back inside his sleeping bag and rolled back and forth to tuck it in tight around his neck. He writhed in the sleeping bag, flexing and stretching his legs to generate some warmth. He opened his eyes and rolled over so he could see the pack by his side. He freed his arm again and plunged it into the pack, felt around inside for a couple of seconds until he found a pair of underwear and jammed them deep inside the sleeping bag between his legs. He did the same with a pair of heavy wool socks. He lay there for a couple of minutes until he heard the zipper of someone's tent nearby open.

"Sweet Mother of Hairy Jesus," he said. He struggled out of his sleeping socks and sweatpants and into the still cold underpants and socks. Then he sat up with the sleeping bag still around his legs, took off his sleeping tee shirt and put on the driest working tee shirt he could find. He struggled into a long-sleeved work shirt, put on his watch, and crawled out of the sleeping bag and unzipped the door of his tent. Like the 40 or so other tents near him, there was a plastic tarp strung up a couple of feet above his tent providing extra protection for the tent and a sheltered awning in front of the door. He grabbed his boots from beside the tent and shook them upside down briefly. Some moss and a twig fell out of one of them. He put his boots on, still sitting half inside the tent, then swivelled around into a crouch outside the tent and did the door zip back up. He jammed his toque on his head, picked up his daypack and headed down the path to the cook shack.

>> Farts Like Gold: 7

I slept on the bus, but not until after I let my new friend Tony sign my gauze. I watched as he started to draw a heart with his black felt pen. He noticed me watching him and turned it into a flower.

"I didn't want you to get the wrong idea," he said.

I nodded. "Don't worry about it."

He took his coat out of his daypack and scrunched it up against the window. He winked at me then pressed his head against the coat and closed his eyes.

I took a couple more Tylenol 3s, pulled my cap down over my eyes, slumped down in the seat and stretched my legs out. I didn't sleep much but at least my hand stopped throbbing for a while.

We pulled into Edmonton just before 5:30 in the morning. Tony collected his luggage while I got into a cab. He ran over and knocked on the window. I rolled it down.

"I just thought maybe we could meet up later for a drink. Not because... you know. But because. Well, you know."

"Don't worry about it." I said. "Do you know the Commercial Hotel on Whyte Avenue?"

"Yeah."

"Well, depending on what happens with my hand, I'll see you there. But not tonight. I'm betting I'll either be in the hospital or trying to sleep."

"How about tomorrow?"

"How about Friday?" I said. "Come to think of it, what day is it today?"

"Wednesday."

"Perfect. Friday it is then."

"Great. See you Friday."

I rolled up the window. Tony had a huge grin on his face.

"University Hospital," I said to the driver.

Around about the time the bus was pulling into Edmonton, Cassie was pulling muffins out of the oven back in camp. The sun was rising. April was making breakfast burritos. Everyone else was still asleep.

"Do you think Kent is in Edmonton, yet?" asked April.

"Don't know. I know I'm not. The lucky bastard!" Cassie tipped the muffins out of the tray on to a cooling rack. "I think he said it was an overnight bus trip. But I don't know what overnight means. Might be there. Might be not."

April was grating cheese for the burritos. "I wish I was in Edmonton. I'd love to sit in a chair with a back. I'd love to sleep in! I want to get up when it's light and go to bed when it's dark. How much longer until the break?"

"The season has barely started! We've only been out here for a couple of weeks. You've got a long way to go, sugar!" Cassie said. "But somehow It feels like it's ending already. I hate it when people leave camp. I love Lucy to bits, but she just makes men stupid. I don't know exactly what went on up there. But I do know that it would have taken a mighty leap of stupidity for Kent to break his hand. And there's only one force in the universe that can make that man that stupid."

"Oh come on. It sounds like it could have happened to anybody. And Kent said it was his own fault. These things just happen."

"Well, some things happen. And some things that happen are good things. And some things that happen are bad things. And some things that happen are just butt stupid things." Cassie dumped another load of muffins on to the rack. A couple didn't come out. She put the tray on the stove and grabbed a knife from the counter. She dug the muffins out with the knife and put them with the others. She added the tray to the pile by the sink and pulled the last tray out of the other oven.

April dumped the cheese she had grated into a bowl and got some eggs out of a cooler at the front of the bus. She picked up two of the eggs, one with each hand, and cracked them into a bowl. She rotated her fingers to separate the shells and tossed them into the garbage. Then she picked up another two eggs. She said, "I don't believe he did anything really stupid. I'm sure there was an element of bad luck involved."

"Maybe. Maybe. Maybe," said Cassie. "I just know when Lucy's around he doesn't pay attention to much of anything else."

"You mean when Lucy's around, he doesn't pay any attention to you."

"Same thing."

April laughed.

Cassie wiped off the cutting board April had been grating cheese onto and started slicing tomatoes for the lunch table. April continued to crack eggs two at a time and dump them in the bowl.

"You're just upset he won't be around to help out in camp," April said.

"He only helped out because Lucy was always in here," said Cassie. "Lucy hid in here to avoid the guys. Kent followed Lucy. And we used Kent to change propane bottles and wash dishes. It's the circle of life, sugar."

Cassie put the tomatoes on a plate and got a tupperware container of luncheon meat out of one of the coolers. She grabbed a couple of peppers and started chopping them up. April had put a full flat of eggs into the bowl. She added some pepper and salt and a liberal slosh of milk and began mixing. A strand of hair fell in front of her eyes and she blew it away with a puff of breath.

>> Farts Like Gold: 6

"Cinnamon?"

"Cinnamon. You know... Kind of red, but browner, like a burnt sienna maybe. Cinnamon. Just because, you know, the phrase 'black heart'... it doesn't sound too friendly. And this guy was friendly. But then, he was in the theatre. Do you want to know how he broke his hand?"

"I guess."

"It was over a woman. The most beautiful woman I've ever heard described. Lips like chocolate éclairs, except without the oozing or being quite so large and so straight. Lips like chocolate éclairs that curve upward in a delightful smile and are coloured red." He stopped and looked into the middle distance for a moment.

"I can't remember what he said. He was in the theatre so he had a way with words. Better than I do anyway. The point is - she was beautiful. But then, being in the circus, she'd have to be pretty fit. I don't know why he talked about her lips. He really should have described her belly. Being a circus performer, I bet she had abs like the stretched hide of a chipmunk. But I guess, being theatrical and all makes a person a bit poetical. It might have been beneath him to talk about her belly."

I sighed. "So this guy..."

"Alvin."

"Alvin. He liked her then?"

"No. Alvin's gay. I mean, actually... I'm not sure. He may have liked her. I couldn't quite tell. I think he liked me. I wonder what he made of the black heart I put on his cast? I sometimes wonder if I'm gay. But I don't think so. Men don't really turn me on. But a woman... And a woman like this one with lips like chocolate éclairs and a belly like the hide of a chipmunk. Wowzers!" He gave his head a little shake and closed his eyes.

"Anyway, there was this other guy. I think Alvin called him Tim. He liked the woman. Hey! I never told you her name. I think he said she was Minerva. Oh! And my name is Tony, by the way." He held out his hand.

I reached across with my left and shook it. "Kent," I said.

"Pleased to meet you. Now Tim definitely liked Minerva. I got the impression from Alvin that he was a little wonky on her. Alvin and Minerva were partners. They did some kind of act that Alvin tried to describe to me. It involved teeter totter boards and a pole. Tim was a clown and stilt walker. They were all working on a new act together. Alvin and Minerva would do this crazy acrobatic stuff where he would jump on the board and she would land on the pole. Tim came on at the end of the act as kind of a humorous transition. He would pester Minerva with flowers and what-not and she would be irritated and try to avoid him but still manage to do these fantastic tricks and flip over his head and all that. Apparently it was quite cool because Tim was on these stilts and she was quite small so he would be bent over offering her flowers and she would be just about to take them and then Alvin would leap on the board and she would flip over Tim's head and end up on the pole. And then, to end the act, she would step out of the way the last time Tim offered her the flowers and Tim would step onto the teeter board just as Alvin jumped and Tim would fly up in the air on his stilts and land on a trapeze net that would be yanked up from the ground just in time. Gasps and shocks and Alvin and Minerva would do one last trick and take their bows.

"The thing was that Tim was actually a far better acrobat than Alvin and he was jealous. Alvin admitted all this up front. Alvin was young and good looking and Tim was an old hand who amongst all his other talents used to be a star on the teeter board. Unfortunately, he was just a bit difficult to work with and so the director preferred him to do solo stuff or group stuff where he didn't have to work too closely with people on an ongoing basis. Anyway, Tim was jealous of Alvin and Minerva's relationship and the fact that Alvin got all the applause and he had to be the clown and just be shot up into a net. So Tim hatched this ploy to try to impress Minerva and at the same time get the director to give him his slot back doing straight acrobatics. Opening night and everything is going smoothly up until the final trick where Tim is supposed to get shot up into the net. Instead, he leans in and flips up towards Alvin, doing a graceful somersault in the air, still wearing the stilts. Alvin, who by his own admission, isn't the best acrobat in the world, stumbles backwards and falls to the stage. Tim's plan was to land with his stilts on either side of Alvin and the teeter board. But Alvin fell right where he had to land and when you're doing a somersault wearing stilts you don't have a lot of options about where to put those stilts when you go to land and so, whether by accident or by plan, one of the silts came down on Alvin's hand. Smashed it like kindling!"

"Needless to say, Minerva wasn't impressed. It wasn't all bad, though. The director was impressed. Or at least impressed enough to realise that Alvin was going to be out for the run of the show. So he gave Alvin's slot to Tim. I tell you. It's a cruel world my friend."

By now Brendan had been back in camp for more than four hours. He'd radioed Joe once he was in range of the blocks.

"How's it going out there?"

"All under control, my brother. Lucy's checking trees and I'm running boxes. See you at camp."

"I'll call you once I get unloaded."

"No worries."

The cooks came out and helped Brendan unload the groceries. It took more than an hour to empty the truck. Brendan busied himself around camp until Joe returned. Then the two of them sat down at the back table and started to go over the next day's planting. Lucy joined them at the table with her checking reports.

"How's Kent?" she asked.

"About as good as can be expected," said Brendan. "I think he's a bit bummed. His hand is wrecked. I don't know if we'll see him again this season."

"Shit," said Joe. "We could use him. We're running behind."

"Don't you worry your pretty little head," said Brendan. "The next two blocks are fast ground. We'll catch up.

"Oh hey! I almost forgot." He reached into his pocket, took out his phone, fiddled with it for a minute and handed it to Lucy.

My voice started to come out of it just as she put it to her ear. She shrieked!

Brendan laughed. Joe looked up but didn't say anything. He reached beneath the table and got the tally books out.

The cookshack was beginning to fill up with planters now. One of them took the Sara McLachlan cd that the cooks had been listening to out of the ghetto blaster and put on a Green Day album. A line started to form next to Joe as planters waited to give him their tallies for the day.

The first planter in the queue was Alistair. He had blonde dreadlocks and wore a torn Maple Leafs ice hockey jersey. He put seven box tags on the table.

"So," said Joe. "How'd it go today?"

"Eighteen hundred and ninety little spruces. The Gods didn't exactly piss on me but they didn't bake me a cake neither."

Joe picked up the box tags, counted them, and dumped them in the box beside him.

"Hey Lucy," said Alistair. "How come you were checking today?"

Lucy held the phone up and hit the button. "My superpowers have failed me. My hand's busted," it said.

"Harsh," said Alistair. "Too bad. Give him my love if you talk to him."

"Lucy," said Brendan. "What's your land like? Who were you working towards?"

"It's not too bad, easy to follow anyway. We were working towards Amber and Kathy."

"Do you mind jumping in with them to close up tomorrow."

"I don't mind closing with them, but I'd rather work with someone else."

"Who?"

"Dunno. Just not those two. They're too... mechanical. I'd just cream them out all day. You know me. I need someone who plants as crooked as I do."

"Kent didn't plant crooked."

"No, but we were a good team. I followed the trees and he kept the line even. And we helped each other bag out. Amber and Kathy take it too seriously. I'd just piss them off."

"What about Alistair and Cameron then?"

"Sure, no problem."

"What do you think, Joe?"

"Fine with me. They should be moving to the new block around noon, I figure."

"It's settled, then."

After dinner, Lucy joined the cooks on the bus and rolled smokes for them as they washed up.

"Ah, Kent, Kent, Kent," said Cassie. "I miss that man."

Lucy nodded, licked the rolling paper and smoothed the cigarette out.

"He never said much. He was like a butler. Always at the ready. We should buy him a tux for when he comes back. He'd look great in a tux. Don't you think?"

"Yeah," said Lucy.

"You know how we have a gown plant every year? Maybe we could make it just a formal wear thing. Then you'd have the option to wear a tux or a fancy evening gown. It would be nice to see some fellows in ties and jackets from time to time. Kent would look smack-dilly-icious in a jacket and tie, I bet."

Lucy laughed. "Kent in a tie... It's not possible."

"He's a good looking dude, that Kent."

"No he's not!"

"Sure he is."

"He's got a funny nose. It's crooked. One nostril is bigger than the other."

"Most people are like that," said April.

"I'm just saying - he's not pretty," said Lucy.

"Why are you going out with him, then?" asked Cassie. "I think he's pretty pretty - pretty gorgeous in fact."

"He's just nice." Lucy dropped her head and began to roll another smoke. Her hair covered her face.

That night Lucy packed up her sleeping bag and moved into my tent.

>> Farts Like Gold: 5

The streets were empty and I managed to get the truck to the hospital without waking Brendan. I left him in the truck, and went in and woke the on call doctor.

He did pretty much the same thing that Brendan did. Told me my hand was broken but that he'd need to x-ray it and suggested I get some sleep until the technician came in at 9. He gave me some Tylenol 3s and offered to get a nurse to help me off with my clothes. I told him not to bother.

I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to verbally convey a decipherable message to Brendan so I tried to write him a note with my left hand.

The nurse took pity on me.

"Let me do that," she said. "What do you want to say."

"Thanks," I said. "Just write, 'Brendan, I'll be in the hospital until at least 10am. Don't bother checking on me until after that.' Oh, and 'Drink some water.' Sign it 'Kent'."

The nurse wrote it out for me and I took it out to the truck and put it on the dashboard with the keys on top of it. Then I went back inside and lay on the bed. Despite the pain, I dosed off within minutes. The drugs must have helped.

I woke up around 8:30 with the general bustle of the hospital coming back to life. I got a coffee from the machine and caught up on the world. Today was the first time I'd been out of the bush in almost two weeks. Nothing much had happened of any significance as near as I could tell. Still, all the people in the glossy magazines looked, well, glossy. They were in stark contrast with myself. If I were a photograph, I'd be matte finish, non-glossy, maybe even matte finish black and white.

They x-rayed my hand just after nine.

There was a new doctor, a ridiculously clean woman. I was mesmerised. She was as glossy as the magazines. "Well, I can tell you your hand is officially broken. That's the good news."

"What's the bad news?"

She tapped a pen on the x-ray. "See that? That's your third metacarpal. It's supposed to be one straight line, not two overlapping ones. It needs to be pinned. You need surgery and we don't have anyone who can do it here right now. You'll have to go to Prince George."

"Can't you just yank on my finger or something?"

"Why? Do you need to fart?" She shook her head. "It's too unstable to stay set. They need to stick some metal in your hand."

"Well, does it have to be Prince George? I'm not going to be able to work with this hand. Can I get it done back home in Edmonton?"

"I can't refer you to a hospital in another province. And you should get it fixed right away and Prince George is much closer."

"I hate Prince George."

"Sorry, as I said, I can't refer you to a hospital in another province."

"Well, what if I had just gone straight to Edmonton without coming here?"

"That would have been crazy. Your hand is broken."

"I really hate Prince George."

"Well, I'll splint your hand up as best I can and give you a prescription for more painkillers, but you should get your hand fixed."

After she was done I went out to the waiting room and called Brendan on his cell.

"Yo!"

"It's Kent. I'm done but I'm going to be out of action for a bit. Where are you? What are you doing?"

"I'm at the dump, chucking garbage and watching bears. I'll see you in half an hour."

"How's your head?"

"Oh fine. No worries. I wasn't totally shitfaced. Just had a bit too much to drink to drive. How's your hand?"

"Busted. Hurts like Hell. I'm going to need surgery and they can't do it here."

"Shit, dude! That sucks monkey ass. Well, I'll swing by as soon as I can."

"Thanks."

"See ya."

After Brendan hung up I went outside and watched the traffic. There was a lot more of it than Lucy and I saw from our mountaintop. The thought of heading back to the city without her depressed me. Fucking Vegas. It never brings anyone any luck.

Brendan showed up about 45 minutes later. I'd missed the morning bus to Edmonton. The next one wasn't until 8pm, so I rode around with him while he got propane and gas. We phoned the cooks about 11.

"Cassie, baby! It's Brendan. What you got for me?" I couldn't hear her side of the conversation. "Yeah, no, his hand's broke. He won't be coming back to camp today."

"Dunno. He's going back to Edmonton to get it fixed. You can talk to him in a minute. Give me the grocery order so I can shop while you talk."

While Brendan took down the grocery order, I played with my sling. I experimented with putting various things in it from my daypack - my wallet, my swiss army knife, a pen. I carefully swung my arm around a bit. Nothing seemed to fall out. For now at least, I had a little purse. Cool. Might be handy if I decided to turn to a life of crime. Good for shoplifting, or smuggling drugs and diamonds.

"Yo!" Brendan handed me the phone. "I'm done. Your turn. Catch up with me in the store."

"No problem. Thanks", I said. He scrawled some final note on his list and got out of the truck. I turned my attention to the phone. "Hi Cassie. How's it going?"

"Fine. It's raining out here. And the hot water heater packed it in again. But what about you?"

"No rain here yet. I'm cacked. Not sure when I'll be back. I'm sneaking off to Edmonton to get my hand fixed and then I guess I'll be on compo for a while."

"Sneaking... Why sneaking? And can't they fix it in Fort St. John?"

"Long story, but basically, I'd just rather get it fixed there. Can you ask Lucy to pack up my stuff if you guys move again. I'll call from the city when I know more."

"Isn't there anything you need from camp?"

"Don't think so. I grabbed my going to town clothes and my wallet. There's not much else there that's any use to me in town." I said. "Except my laundry. That's going to be scary if it stays in my tent for a couple of weeks."

"We can always burn it. It'll be fun. Next day off in camp, we'll hold a ritual and pray to pagan gods and burn the lot! Might as well do your tent too, while we're at it. Fantastic! Naked dancing under the moonlight! Dark chants! Huge bonfire! I'm looking forward to it."

"Or you could ask Lucy if she wouldn't mind doing it next time you guys go to town."

"Maybe. I like the fire idea much better though. Any message for Lucy? Aside from that you want her to do your laundry?"

"Hey, it's kind of her fault my hand's cacked! It's the least she could do."

"Whatever."

"Just tell her I'll call and leave a number once I'm in Edmonton. I'm not sure where I'll be staying yet. And I didn't really mean it's her fault about the hand."

"So you want me to tell her that you've changed your mind about it being her fault, then?"

"No! Just don't mention anything about the hand."

"Just the laundry?"

"Yes. No. Ah fuck! Yes. No. I'll talk to her directly about the laundry. Just don't burn it."

"Whatever."

"Thanks."

"Give us a call when you get a chance? Have fun in civilisation. Watch some crap tv for me."

"Will do. I'll miss you guys. Ciao."

"Ciao, Bello!"

I put Brendan's phone in my sling / purse and walked across the parking lot to the store. I helped him finish up the shopping. We loaded the truck and covered the groceries with a tarp. We were back in the truck before I remembered that I still had his phone in my sling. I pulled it out and was about to hand it to him.

"Actually, just one second. Can I leave a voice message on this thing?"

"Sure." Brendan took the phone from me, fiddled with it for a moment and handed it back. "Just hit this button, talk, then hit red button again when you're done."

"Cool. I want to leave a message for Lucy."

I got out of the truck, closed the door and leaned against it while I gathered my thoughts. I hit the button.

"Lucy, it's Kent. My superpowers have failed me. My hand's busted and I don't think I'll be planting any trees any time soon. It doesn't sound too bad, but I am going to need surgery which I can't get in town, so I'm heading down to Edmonton. Soon I'll be living the high life on worker's comp, while you poor bastards are still scratching in the dirt for pennies. Cappuccinos and pavement and flush toilets. Oh yeah! Anyway, I'll miss you. I'll call the camp once I know a bit more and leave a number. I'd be eternally grateful if you can look after my stuff until I get back to camp. And, I guess, well, I'll miss you. Bye."

I hit the button, closed the phone, and got back in the truck. I hoped to hell I'd be getting comp. Without it, I wouldn't be having many cappuccinos. I gave the phone back to Brendan.

"Right. Lunch. And then I'll have to drop you someplace. Where do you want to eat? My treat."

"Humpty's?"

"Sounds good."

After lunch, Brendan gave me $200 which I signed for and then he dropped me off in front of the cinema in time to catch the matinee showing of "Almost Famous". It was the right film at the right time. Significant portions of it took place on the tour bus of a fictional rock band. It made me almost look forward to the 10 hour greyhound trip I had ahead of me. I went to a Chinese restaurant near the cinema for dinner and then it was time for the greyhound.

I waited until almost everyone else had boarded the bus. I prefer to pick who I sit beside rather than end up with some random stranger.

I spotted someone who looked perfect. He was neatly-dressed with a Stephen King paperback and a daypack on the seat beside him.

"Hi, mind if I sit here?" I asked.

He looked a little put out, but he stood up and jammed his daypack in the luggage rack above our heads. I smiled and stuffed mine between my knees and settled back to get some sleep.

"Where you headed?" he asked.

I kept my eyes closed. "Edmonton," I said.

"What happened to your arm?"

"Quad accident," I said. "I broke my hand."

"Nasty," he said. Then he put his book away. "I know a guy who broke his hand once."

I winced, closed my eyes, and rolled slightly away from him.

The guy didn't take the hint. "He was in the circus," he continued. "Well, not when I knew him. I met him on a bus like this. His name was Alvin. Ever heard of the Cirque du Soleil? He was with them. He had his arm in a sling like you. He had a proper cast though. It had lots of cool stuff written on it. All different colour pens. Quite beautiful, actually. Why is that you don't have a cast?"

I shrugged without opening my eyes.

"I would have thought they would have put your hand in a proper cast. How am I supposed to sign that big wad of gauze?" He laughed. "Not that you necessarily have to ask me to sign it, of course. We just met. Alvin asked me to sign his cast. I drew a big black heart on it. But I suppose theatrical people are a bit more outgoing than most people. I mean like you or I. We're going to be on this bus for 9 hours and 20 minutes, assuming we arrive on time. Even by the end of that time you might feel you don't know me well enough to ask me to sign your cast."

I opened my eyes and gave him a subtle psycho look. I raised my sling. "I don't have a cast," I said.

"Cast. Gauze. Whatever. I should say that there was nothing behind the colour."

"What?"

"The colour of the heart. It didn't mean anything that it was a black heart. That was just the colour of pen I had with me. There were plenty of other colours on that cast. Purple and Orange and Cinnamon."

>> Farts Like Gold: 4

"What happened to it?" She asked. "Let me see."

I turned the key on the quad. The headlight came on and I stuck my hand in front of it. Lucy touched my hand and I yelped. It was scraped up top and bottom and starting to swell. I was pretty sure it hadn't been quite the same shape before. There was a brand new knobbly bit in the back of my hand.

"I think it might be broken."

"It's probably all right," I said. "Let's get back to camp and I'll put some ice on it. Check it out in the morning."

Lucy took my hand again and I flinched.

"Come on. Get on the quad. We should get going."

Lucy climbed on to the quad. "How do I get it into reverse?"

"Hold this button in, now pull the brake and kick the gearshift down."

I stepped around to the front of the quad. I grabbed the frame with my left hand. I braced my right forearm against the front rack and heaved. Lucy gave it a bit of gas. The quad lurched backwards a bit, climbed over boulder and then the front dropped down on the other side. I followed and tripped over the boulder just as the quad's front wheels hit the ground and wrenched the handlebars from Lucy's grasp. I swung my right arm out of the way to save my hand and fell headfirst into the left handlebar as it swung around.

I was already in so much pain now that I didn't bother swearing. I just sat on the boulder and held my right forearm against my head where it been thwacked by the handlebar.

"Sorry about that," said Lucy. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Not your fault."

Lucy grabbed the handlebars again. She backed the quad up and then drove it around the boulder. I got on the back and we made our way very carefully back to the camp. I experimented with various ways of holding my hand as she drove. The least painful seemed to be to hold my arm up at an angle as if I was doing a "heil Hitler" salute. This let my body provide the greatest amount of shock absorption as we drove.

It was after midnight when we got back to camp. With the generator shut off for the night, anyone who was awake would have heard us coming for the last couple of miles. There was a light glowing from the back of the dining attached to the cookbus.

Lucy got off the quad first. "Are you going to be okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, no problems. We'll see what it's like in the morning."

"Maybe you should get Brendan to check your hand." She shrugged her shoulders towards the light in the dining tent.

"Probably not much he can do," I said. "But okay."

We ducked under the tent flap alongside the bus and entered the dining tent behind the breakfast table. Sure enough, Brendan was still up and so was Cassandra. They sat at the table at the back where the foreman and other staff always sat. That table was a bit like Brendan and Joe's office. The only thing to mark it out particularly was a couple of coolers filled with paperwork underneath. Sometimes April put flowers on it for them.

There was a bottle of Golden Wedding on the table and a carton of apple juice. Brendan and Cassandra were both drinking from melmac mugs. Cassandra was smoking a cigarette. The light came from two citronella candles at either end of the table.

"How was Vegas?" asked Cassandra.

"Grab a couple of mugs if you want a drink!" said Brendan, a little too loudly.

I stopped and picked up a couple of mugs, sticking the first and pinky fingers of my left hand through the handles.

"Kent broke his hand."

"Maybe," I said. I put the mugs on the table with my left hand and put my right hand on the table near one of the candles.

Brendan put his face near my hand. "I can't see fuck all, but that sucker's huge. Are you sure you're not wearing a baseball glove?"

Cassandra poured a slug of Golden Wedding into each of our cups and added some apple juice. She got up and headed towards the cookbus. "I'll go get a flashlight and some peas," she said.

Brendan touched me lightly on the wrist. "That hurt?" he asked.

"No."

"Let me know when it does." He ran his finger lightly along the back of my hand towards the new knobbly bit.

"Jesus Fuck!" I said and yanked my hand away from him.

Brendan grabbed my mug and poured it into his own. "No booze for you," he said.

"Why not?"

"I'm too drunk to drive, and we're taking you into town." He suddenly sat up straight. "Wait a minute! How's the quad? Did you wreck my fucking quad?"

"The quad's fine," said Lucy. "It's just Kent that's broken."

"Oh, okay then." He took a swig of whiskey. "I swear by the sweet brown starfish of the Virgin Mary that if you'd wrecked that quad... Anyway, everything's all right."

Cassandra returned with a flashlight and a bag of frozen peas wrapped in a tea towel. She shone the flashlight on my hand. It was about twice the size of my other hand. There was a definite knobble in the back of it, a bit like an extra knuckle where there shouldn't be one. "The peas should keep the swelling down," she said. "Are you going to try to set it?"

Brendan and I both looked at her.

"Maybe not."

"Well, if we're going into town we need a plan. Lucy, tomorrow morning can you explain things to Joe and tell him I'll be back before dinner. Maybe you could help him haul trees."

"I don't mind helping out, but last night was only the second time I've driven a quad."

"In that case, I'm making you checker. Ah fuck it. Joe can work it out." Brendan drained his mug and got to his feet. He had a little trouble getting his legs around the bench but seemed to balance okay. "Let's go load up the truck. Cassandra, I'll phone you tomorrow after breakfast to see if you've got anything you want me to pick up."

"No problems. I can give you a list now if you want?"

"No. Tomorrow's better. I'm sure you'll come up with some more stuff by the morning."

"Well, just make sure you get some smokes and some fruit. I'm going to bed. Have fun."

Lucy helped Brendan and I load up the truck with empty propane cans, gas barrels and garbage. She walked with me to my tent, opened the zipper for me and rummaged around until she found my wallet and some clean socks and undies.

"I'm sorry about the hand," she said. "Can you get me some chocolate and some drum?"

"Will do."

She kissed me and walked off through the dark to her tent. I made my way back to the truck. Brendan was in the back checking that the propane cans were tied up securely. He jumped down as I approached. I climbed in the driver's seat and reached across the steering wheel to turn the key with my left hand. Brendan climbed in the passenger seat. I struggled to get the truck in gear with my left hand.

"I don't mind driving," I said, "but you're going to have shift gears."

"No worries. Just wake me when you need me."

I pulled out of camp onto the road and headed for town. It was only about ten miles to the main road which was gravel. After that I only had to nudge Brendan awake a few times for a couple of steep hills and a bridge. We got into Fort St. John around four in the morning.

>> Farts Like Gold: 3

I'm attempting to write a novel in a month as part of National Novel Writing Month. It's called Farts Like Gold and I'm way behind the pace. After a week, I've only written about 1600 words. The goal is to do 50,000 by the end of November. Anyway, I'm not sure how I'm going to present it going forward but here's the first chunk:

***********************************************************

Lucy sat on the counter of the cookbus. I stared at her hands as she rolled herself a cigarette. She had hands like fistfuls of beef jerky. She always planted without gloves and I doubt her hands were ever clean, even in the off-season.

Cassandra and April were the cooks that year. Cassandra was washing dishes and April was chopping vegetables for tomorrow's lunch table. I just sat at the front of the bus, sideways on the driver's seat with my left foot half-wedged in the glove compartment. Lucy leaned across to the sink and stuck the finished rollie in Cassandra's lips.

"Mmmm...." Cassandra said. "Smokeddey smoke smoke smoke."

Lucy started to roll another cigarette. Cassandra turned her head towards her.

"Light me up!"

Lucy shrugged and looked towards me. I struggled my foot out of the glove compartment, grabbed a lighter off the dashboard and lit Cassandra's cigarette.

"Ever been to Vegas?" she asked.

"No," said Lucy.

"Gordon and I went last year. It's completely surreal. It's amazing how little it's like High Level."

Lucy laughed. "Why would it be like High Level?"

"Well, you know all the motels in High Level have the same names as in Vegas: The Stardust, the Frontier... But there's no Stratosphere in High Level. No big mile high tower with a rollercoaster on the roof. "

"I hate High Level," said April. "But then, I'm pretty sure I'd hate Vegas. Fake churches make me break out in hives."

"They're not fake," said Cassandra. "They're real churches. They're just kind of plasticy. And they've got Elvises in them. You never see an Elvis in High Level."

I stuck the lighter in my teeth, picked up a dish towel and started drying plates.

"How did you get there?" Lucy asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Did you drive? Did you fly? Did you take the bus? Did you see anything on the way?"

"We took one of those package holidays for gamblers. Except we didn't gamble."

"Not at all?"

"Nope. Didn't even stick a quarter in a slot machine."

"Well, what did you do?"

Cassandra leaned over to get her head below the level of the counter and stamped her foot and jolted her head a bit to shake the ash off the end of her cigarette. Her hands never left the sink.

"We rode the roller-coaster on the top of the Stratosphere."

Lucy stuck her feet out and lightly kicked me in the back of the knees. "Kent, baby, how come you never take me to the stratosphere?"

"I'm ready to take you to the stratosphere any time you want," I said. "Just let me finish the dishes with Cassandra."

"No. Let's go now! Before it gets dark."

"Dark?" I asked.

"Go ahead," said Cassandra. "We're fine."

"Really?"

"Yes, Go!"

I draped the towel over the steering wheel, picked up the stack of plates I'd dried, and took them down the steps at the back of the bus into the cook tent. Lucy packed up her drum and hopped off the counter behind me. She stole a carrot stick from April's cutting board on the way by. I added my stack of dishes to the pile on the breakfast table.

Lucy ducked around the corner of the bus and out into the camp. It was May and we were far enough North that it didn't get dark until about 11pm. I figured we had about an hour.

She walked past the front of the bus and I followed. "Lucy, when you say 'take you to the stratosphere', what do you mean?"

She smiled and pointed with the carrot at the top of the hill that rose up behind the camp. She bit the end of the carrot and turned towards the quadbike at the front of the bus. "And that's the rollercoaster."

"We can't take the quad."

"Sure we can. Look. The keys are in it."

"Lucy!"

"Come on. No one's going to miss it. Joe and Brendan are done for the night. Take me to the stratosphere, baby!"

She stepped on the footpeg of the quad, swung her leg over and sat down. She put the carrot in her mouth alongside her cigarette and leaned back with her hands on the luggage rack behind her. Her head dropped back and her hair almost touched the luggage rack. She took the cigarette from her mouth, drew the carrot in a bit further with her lips and bit off a chunk.

I watched her mouth as she did this. Then I looked at the empty space between her legs on the seat in front of her, zipped my coat up and sighed.

There's just something about a woman gobbling a carrot that causes my brain to shut off. I got on the quad and was rewarded by Lucy putting her arms around my chest and snuggling up against my back.

I started the quad, drove around the front of the bus and headed out of camp. It hadn't rained for a couple of days. There was a decent gravel road that went about halfway up the hill. From there the trail wasn't too bad. We had a couple of blocks to do about two thirds of the way up and a couple of nights ago I spent an hour or so helping Brendan build access. So that far, at least, it was a breeze. After that I just took it slow. Lucy had to get off the quad a couple of times while I drove it over or around some tricky obstacles. We didn't make it all the way to the top but we got close. By then I could feed the darkness coming in but I wasn't too worried.

We hadn't said a word to each other all the way up. I switched off the engine and stood up on the pegs so that Lucy could get off the quad. Where we stopped, the trail curved near the edge of a short cliff. Lucy walked to the edge of this and stood there looking down at the camp. I made sure the quad was in gear and the brake was on and joined her. It was dusk now and the only lights in the valley below us belonged to the camp. The sound of the generator just barely touched us. Aside from that there was the sound of the branches rubbing against each other and every now and then a faint ticking sound from the engine of the quad cooling down. But really, to hear anything, you had to stand perfectly still and concentrate.

"Not much traffic," she said.

"No."

She leaned back against me. "It's getting cold," she said. I put my arms around her and rested my chin on her head.

"You smell like dirt," I said.

She laughed.

"It's a nice, musty smell. A clean smell -- if dirt can smell clean," I said. "I like it."

She turned around and nuzzled her face into my neck. "You smell like whiskey and oranges."

"Is that good?"

"Well you could definitely use a shower."

We kissed and she slid her hands inside my coat. She pulled the back of my shirt free and slid her hands up my back. They were cold and I stiffened. I reached down across her back to wedge my hands under her armpits to warm them and pulled her closer.

We stayed there until it got dark and then I turned the quad around and we started back down the hill. Once we got back down to where the trail became a recognisable skid trail, I slowed down and turned my head. "Are you ready for your roller coaster ride? Hold tight!"

The trail was fairly steep at this point with some gentle rolling bits and I was pretty sure it was fairly smooth. I geared down to first and then kicked the bike into neutral and turned the key. The noise of the engine died along with the headlights and we rolled down into darkness.

Lucy shrieked with delight and held me tight.

We picked up speed surprisingly fast. Right at the dip of one of the little rolly bits there was a boulder I'd forgotten about. The left front tire hit it. I slammed my thighs into the handlebars. Lucy flew off the quad. The quad still had momentum, though, and rolled over the boulder, into a pothole on the other side and flipped. I hit the ground first and somehow the front of the quad landed on my hand. It all seemed to happen slowly but with enormous inertia. I felt it as five separate events: boulder, thighs, pothole, ground, and sweet-mother-of-fucking-jesus-my-fucking-hand!

"Are you all right?" asked Lucy.

"Fuck! Shit! Fuck!" I said. "Fuck no! The fucking quad's on my hand! Fuck!" I scrambled and shoved my shoulder under the side of the quad and managed to lift it up enough to wrench my hand out. Lucy came over to me.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

She laughed. "Yeah, I'm fine. What a ride! Do it again! Do it again!"

"Help me with the quad," I said. My right hand was filled with pain and starting to throb. Something was definitely wrong with it. I grabbed onto the front luggage rack with my left hand and braced my legs. Lucy got beside me and pushed on the right luggage rack. We rocked it a couple of times and then managed to get it back on its wheels again. It was high-centred though.

"I'll push," I said. "You'll have to drive. My hand's buggered."

>> Farts Like Gold: 2