An Ordinary Decent Criminal by Michael Van Rooy Page B

potatoes.”
    “Blech.”
    She pressed the side of her butt into my hip.
    I changed the subject. “It’s a nice town.”
    Claire patted my knee and then squeezed my shoulder. Fred rolled over awkwardly and humped his butt up until it was pointing at the sky. She stared at him and then spoke. “You sound wistful.”
    “Well, we’re not going to stay, are we? Which means I can be wistful as I want in consideration of all the things that could have happened for us here.”
    I could see far away across Main where an elderly man in a white coat was sweeping the sidewalk in front of a barbershop. He used a corn broom and stopped as I watched to talk to a passerby. I started to say something and Fred farted loudly and startled us both into quickly hushed laughter.
    When I could breathe again, I said, “Remember what they say in the Maritimes?”
    “What?”
    I put on my worst Newfie accent and did an impression. “Well, now, me boyo, your cough sure sounds better.”
    Claire snorted once and tucked Fred back under the light blanket. The old man across the street went back to work and then cleaned a spot on the display window with the edge of his sleeve and some spit. I talked as I watched the man. “You know, you’d never see that in Edmonton.”
    Claire nodded agreement. “Or in Calgary, or Vancouver, and certainly not in the big, bad, old Toronto. No one in any of those cities would ever sweep their own sidewalk. They’d wait until the city did it or the wind picked up.”
    “Yep. It’s really a very nice town, all things considered. Friendly, clean, and we’ve got no past here. That’s nice in a lot of ways. It gives some leeway just to be here.”
    Fred woke up and whined until I gave him my finger to bite. Then he settled down and went back to chewing on me and I thought about how many times I’d used that finger to hurt someone or to threaten pain, to extort or to steal. Fred’s puckered face didn’t care, though, he didn’t know and he didn’t care and I couldn’t feel much else but love at that moment. Claire sat back and I could feel the tension leaving her body. Like always, she knew before I did. When she spoke, her voice was husky. “And you’re clean here, so am I.”
    “Right. No one’s looking for me that hard. And I’ve never had a real job and I’d kind of like to know what it’s like.”
    She got up and helped me to my feet as Fred looked from face to face and blew spit bubbles.
    “Right, well then, that’s decided, so let’s get home. I’m sure your damned dog has ripped the place to shit by now.”
    As we walked down the road, I linked my arm back in hers. “Why is he my dog when he does something bad and your dog when he does something good?”
    She laughed and refused to answer, which I felt was extremely unfair.

11

    “So, how do I look?”
    Claire moved around in front of me and adjusted the tie.
    “Like an ex-con looking for work.”
    I was wearing an expensive, pale gray suit with a pale blue cotton shirt and a pair of oxfords with steel toes, fairly useful remnants from a life of crime. They were good for kicking a door in or crunching up a kneecap without breaking a toe.
    “But an attractive, reliable, honest ex-con looking for work, right?”
    “Oh, yes. Gently changing the subject, she says, this tie. Have you ever untied it or did you just make a knot sometime last decade and leave it?”
    “Yes. How can you tell?”
    She pulled at the knot, which did nothing, so she stepped back to pick at it with her teeth.
    “I was kidding. I was only kidding.”
    The clothes made me feel like a loser. These clothes were not me, these clothes were the ones I wore when I talked to the judges and the prosecuting attorneys. These were the clothes that translated intoa badge of failure. Fred crawled over and bit my knee and I cheered up.
    “You still love me, don’t you, Fred?”
    He kept chewing and I sat down and started to wrestle with him, which he seemed to like. Fred had