The only reason I had driven all the way to Presque Isle, Maine, was to lay to rest my old Army buddy Dean Brunswick III (may G.o.d forgive him for what he did in Colonel Wrightman"s cigar-box). I couldn"t wait to get back south, but now I found myself stuck a half-mile away from Calais, Maine, population 4,003 and one of the most northernmost, easternmost, back-whackingest towns you could ever have waking nightmares about.
Calais is locally p.r.o.nounced "CAL-us" and believe me a callous is exactly what it is-a hard, corny little spot on the right elbow of America. Especially when you have an engineless uninsured automobile and a maxed-out Visa card and only $226 in your billfold and no friends or relations back home who can afford to send you more than a cheery h.e.l.lo.
I left my beloved Mercury tilted up on the leafy embankment by the side of US Route 1 South and walked into town. I never cared a whole lot for walking, mainly because my weight has kind of edged up a little since I left the Army in "86, due to a pathological lack of restraint when it comes to file gumbo and Cajun spiced chicken with lots of crunchy bits and mustard-barbecued spare ribs and Key lime pies. My landlady Rita Personage says that when she first saw me she thought that Orson Welles had risen from the dead, and I must say I do have quite a line in flappy white double-breasted sport coats, not to mention a few wide-brimmed white hats, though not all in prime condition since I lost my job with the Louisiana Restaurant a.s.sociation which was a heinous political fix involving some of the shadier elements in the East Baton Rouge catering community and also possibly the fact that I was on the less balletic side of 289 pounds.
It was a piercing bright day. The sky was blue like ink and the trees were all turning gold and red and crispy brown. Calais is one of those neat New England towns with white clapboard houses and churches with spires and cheery people waving to each other as they drive up and down the streets at 2 1/2 mph.
By the time I reached North and Main I was sweating like a cheese and severely in need of a beer. There was a whip, whip, whoop behind me and it was a police patrol car. I stopped and the officer put down his window. He had mirror sungla.s.ses and a sandy moustache that looked as if he kept his nailbrush on his upper lip. And freckles. You know the type.
"Wasn"t speeding, was I, officer?"
He took off his sungla.s.ses. He didn"t smile. He didn"t even blink. He said, "You look like a man with a problem, sir."
"I know. I"ve been on Redu-Quick for over six months now and I haven"t lost a pound."
That really cracked him up, not. "You in need of some a.s.sistance?" he asked me.
"Well, my car suffered a minor mechanical fault a ways back there and I was going into town to see if I could get anybody to fix it."
"That your clapped-out saddle-bronze Marquis out on Route One?"
"That"s the one. Nothing that a few minutes in the crusher couldn"t solve."
"Want to show me some ID?"
"Sure." I handed him my driver"s license and my ident.i.ty card from the restaurant a.s.sociation. He peered at them, and for some reason actually sniffed them.
"John Henry Dauphin, Choctaw Drive, East Baton Rouge. You"re a long way from home, Mr. Dauphin."
"I"ve just buried one of my old Army buddies up in Presque Isle."
"And you drove all the way up here?"
"Sure, it"s only two thousand three hundred and seven miles. It"s a pretty fascinating drive, if you don"t have any drying paint that needs watching."
"Louisiana Restaurant a.s.sociation ... that"s who you work for?"
"That"s right," I lied. Well, he didn"t have to know that I was out of a job. "I"m a restaurant hygiene consultant. Hey-bet you never guessed that I was in the food business."
"Okay ... the best thing you can do is call into Lyle"s Autos down at the other end of Main Street, get your vehicle towed off the highway as soon as possible. If you require a place to stay I can recommend the Calais Motor Inn."
"Thank you. I may stay for a while. Looks like a nice town. Very ... well-swept."
"It is," he said, as if he were warning me to make sure that it stayed that way. He handed back my ID and drove off at the mandatory snail"s pace.
Lyle"s Autos was actually run by a stocky man called Nils Guttormsen. He had a gray crewcut and a permanently surprised face like a chipmunk going through the sound barrier backward. He charged me a mere $65 for towing my car into his workshop, which was only slightly more than a quarter of everything I had in the world, and he estimated that he could put the engine back into it for less than $785, which was about $784 more than it was actually worth.
"How long will it take, Nils?"
"Well, John, you need it urgent?"
"Not really, Nils ... I thought I might stick around town for a while. So-you know-why don"t you take your own sweet time?"
"Okay, John. I have to get transmission parts from Bangor. I could have it ready, say Tuesday?"
"Good deal, Nils. Take longer if you want. Make it the Tuesday after next. Or even the Tuesday after that."
"You"ll be wanting a car while I"m working on yours, John."
"Will I, Nils? No, I don"t think so. I could use some exercise, believe me."
"It"s entirely up to you, John. But I"ve got a couple of nifty Toyotas to rent if you change your mind. They look small but there"s plenty of room in them. Big enough to carry a sofa."
"Thanks for the compliment, Nils."
I hefted my battered old suitcase to the Calais Motor Inn, changing hands every few yards all the way down Main Street. Fortunately the desk accepted my Visa impression without even the hint of hysterical laughter. The Calais Motor Inn was a plain, comfortable motel, with plaid carpets and a shiny bar with tinkly music where I did justice to three bottles of chilled Molson"s and a ham-and-Swiss-cheese triple-decker sandwich on rye with coleslaw and straw fried potatoes, and two helpings of cookie crunch ice-cream to keep my energy levels up.
The waitress was a pretty snubby-nose woman with cropped blonde hair and a kind of a Swedish look about her.
"Had enough?" she asked me.
"Enough of what? Cookie crunch ice cream or Calais in general?"
"My name"s Velma," she said.
"John," I replied, and bobbed up from my leatherette seat to shake her hand.
"Just pa.s.sing through, John?" she asked me.
"I don"t know, Velma ... I was thinking of sticking around for a while. Where would somebody like me find themselves a job? And don"t say the circus."
"Is that what you do, John?" she asked me.
"What do you mean, Velma?"
"Make jokes about yourself before anybody gets them in?"
"Of course not. Didn"t you know that all fat guys have to be funny by federal statute? No, I"m a realist. I know what my relationship is with food and I"ve learned to live with it."
"You"re a good-looking guy, John, you know that?"
"You can"t fool me, Velma. All fat people look the same. If fat people could run faster, they"d all be bank robbers, because n.o.body can tell them apart."
"Well, John, if you want a job you can try the want ads in the local paper, The Quoddy Whirlpool."
"The what?"
"The bay here is called the Pa.s.samaquoddy, and out by Eastport we"ve got the Old Sow Whirlpool, which is the biggest whirlpool in the Western hemisphere."
"I see. Thanks for the warning."
"You should take a drive around the Quoddy Loop ... it"s beautiful. Fishing quays, lighthouses, lakes. Some good restaurants, too."
"My car"s in the shop right now, Velma. Nothing too serious. Engine fell out."
"You"re welcome to borrow mine, John. It"s only a Volkswagen but I don"t hardly ever use it."
I looked up at her and narrowed my eyes. Down in Baton Rouge the folks slide around on a snail"s trail of courtesy and Southern charm, but I can"t imagine any one of them offering a total stranger the use of their car, especially a total stranger who was liable to ruin the suspension just by sitting in the driver"s seat.
"That"s very gracious of you, Velma."
I bought The Quoddy Whirlpool. If you were going into hospital for a heart bypa.s.s they could give you that paper instead of a general anesthetic. Under "Help Wanted" somebody was advertising for a "talented" screen-door repair person and somebody else needed an experienced leaf-blower mechanic and somebody else was looking for a twice-weekly dog-walker for their Presa Canario. Since I happened to know that Presa Canarios stand two feet tall and weigh almost as much as I do, and that two of them notoriously ripped an innocent woman in San Francisco into b.l.o.o.d.y shreds I was not wholly motivated to apply for the last of those positions.
In the end I went to the Maine Job Service on Beech Street. A bald guy in a green zip-up hand-knitted cardigan sat behind a desk with photographs of his toothy wife on it (presumably the perpetrator of the green zip-up hand-knitted cardigan) while I had to hold my hand up all the time to stop the sun from shining in my eyes.
"So ... what is your field of expertise, Mr. Dauphin?"
"Oh, please, call me John. I"m a restaurant hygienist. I have an FSIS qualification from Baton Rouge University and nine years" experience working for the Louisiana Restaurant a.s.sociation."
"What brings you up to Calais, Maine, John?"
"I just felt it was time for a radical change of location." I squinted at the nameplate on his desk. "Martin."
"I"m afraid I don"t have anything available on quite your level of expertise, John. But I do have one or two catering opportunities."
"What exactly kind of catering opportunities, Martin?"
"Vittles need a cleaner ... that"s an excellent restaurant, Vittles, one of the premier eateries in town. It"s situated in the Calais Motor Inn."
"Ah." As a guest of the Calais Motor Inn, I couldn"t exactly see myself eating dinner in the restaurant and then carrying my own dishes into the kitchen and washing them up.
"Then Tony"s has an opportunity for a breakfast chef."
"Tony"s?"
"Tony"s Gourmet Burgers on North Street."
"I see. What do they pay?"
"They pay more than Burger King or McDonald"s. They have outlets all over Maine and New Brunswick, but they"re more of a family business. More of a quality restaurant, if you know what I mean. I always take my own family to eat there."
"And is that all you have?"
"I have plenty of opportunities in fishing and a.s.sociated trades. Do you have any expertise with drift nets?"
"Drift nets? Are you kidding? I spent my whole childhood trawling for pilchards off the coast of Greenland."
Martin looked across his desk at me, sitting there with my hand raised like I needed to go to the bathroom. When he spoke his voice was very biscuity and dry. "Why don"t you call round at Tony"s, John? See if you like the look of it. I"ll give Mr. Le Renges a call, tell him you"re on your way."
"Thanks, Martin."
Tony"s Gourmet Burgers was one block away from Burger King and two blocks away from McDonald"s, on a straight tree-lined street where the 4x4s rolled past at 2 1/2 mph and everybody waved to each other and whacked each other on the back whenever they could get near enough and you felt like a hidden orchestra was going to strike up the theme to Providence.
All the same Tony"s was quite a handsome-looking restaurant with a brick front and bra.s.s carriage-lamps outside with flickering artificial flames. A chalkboard proudly proclaimed that this was "the home of wholesome, hearty food, lovingly prepared in our own kitchens by people who really care." Inside it was fitted out with dark wood paneling and tables with green checkered cloths and gilt-framed engravings of whitetail deer, black bear and moose. It was crowded with cheery-looking families, and you certainly couldn"t fault it for ambiance. Smart, but homely, with none of that wipe-clean feeling you get at McDonald"s.
At the rear of the restaurant was a copper bar with an open grill, where a spotty young guy in a green ap.r.o.n and a tall green chef"s hat was sizzling hamburgers and steaks.
A redheaded girl in a short green pleated skirt sashayed up to me and gave me a 500-watt smile, complete with teeth-braces. "You prefer a booth or a table, sir?"
"Actually, neither. I have an appointment to see Mr. Le Renges."
"He"s right in back ... why don"t you follow me? What name shall I say?"
"John."
Mr. Le Renges was sitting in a blood-red leather chair with a reproduction antique table beside him, on which there was a fax-machine, a silver carriage-clock, and a gla.s.s of seltzer. He was a bony man of 45 or so with dyed-black collar-length hair which he had combed with something approaching genius to conceal his dead-white scalp. His nose was sharp and multi-faceted, and his eyes glittered under his overgrown eyebrows like blowflies. He wore a very white open-neck shirt with long 1970s collar-points and a tailored black three-piece suit. I had the feeling that he thought he bore more than a pa.s.sing resemblance to Al Pacino.
On the paneled wall behind him hung an array of certificates from the Calais Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Maine Restaurant Guide and even one from Les Chevaliers de la Haute Cuisine Canadienne.
"Come in, John," said Mr. Le Renges, in a distinctly French-Canadian accent. "Sit down, please ... the couch, perhaps? That chair"s a little-"
"A little little?"
"I was thinking only of your comfort, John. You see my policy is always to make the people who work for me feel happy and comfortable. I don"t have a desk, I never have. A desk is a statement which says that I am more important than you. I am not more important. Everybody who works here is of equal importance, and of equal value."
"You"ve been reading the McDonald"s Bible. Always make your staff feel valued. Then you won"t have to pay them so much."
I could tell that Mr. Le Renges didn"t quite know if he liked that remark. It was the way he twitched his head, like Data in Star Trek. But I could also tell that he was the kind of guy who was anxious that n.o.body should leave him without fully comprehending what a wonderful human being he was.
He sipped some seltzer and eyed me over the rim of the gla.s.s. "You are perhaps a little mature to be seeking work as a burger chef."
"Mature? I"m positively overripe. But I"ve been working in the upper echelons of the restaurant trade for so long, I thought it was time that I went back to basics. Got my hands dirty, so to speak."
"At Tony"s Gourmet Burgers, John, our hygiene is second to none."
"Of course. When I say getting my hands dirty-that"s like a metaphor. Food hygiene, that"s my specialty. I know everything there is to know about proper cooking times and defrosting and never picking your nose while you"re making a Caesar salad."
"What"s your cooking experience, John?"
"I was a cook in the Army. Three times winner of the Fort Polk prize for culinary excellence. It made me very good at home economics. I can make a pound-and-a-half of ground beef stretch between two platoons of infantry and a heavy armored a.s.sault force."
"You"re a funny guy, John," said Mr. Le Renges, without the slightest indication that he was amused.
"I"m fat, Tony. Funny goes with the territory."