Mud glossed; with a side of curiosity stained tears
The morning had broken sharply over the Edmonds lock site in a blinding fashion. All fireball orange and brilliant, shoving aside the last vestiges of the halo’d moon and the starred void that had preceded it. It had the makings of a beautiful day if it wasn’t for the gusting winds; even those weren’t so bad since they weren’t carrying stabbings shards of ice and snow with them as had been the custom of late.
Half the day was already gone when Old James rolled in to relieve me in his Cadillac, he didn’t seem particularly sour about the fact people had been showing up at the boat launch near the site to fish; he almost seemed human for a few moments. I didn’t dwell on his particular oddities today though; I had easter dinner to get home to and a good nap to have before that; if work was to be an option.
The nap was short; the dinner was filling; and the time with family ultimately well spent. Ranting and raving between my father, cousin, uncle and I simply had my mother smiling and wondering what Grandma would have thought. She’d have loved it. Well timed too; because after dressing for work; and packing my gear: Wee Mike from the local Hospital bounced a message that the provincial police were on site, and the party had started.
Since I was all of three blocks from there and having to leave for the Poonamalie post shortly enough I grabbed my hospital badge and slid over after saying some farewells to the cousin, his lady and their little dog too. It bounced up and down a lot.
Coasting into the parking lot of the Emerg a black ghosted cruiser sat idling, about 20 feet from the one parking in the ambulance lane. I parked and headed for the entrance; but took a few moments to stand out in the rain and admire the immaculate wine coloured old boat of a Lincoln left eschew in the handicapped parking spot.
Swiping into the ER and heading inside; a few weary and under the weather patients blearily turned and watch my entrance. Turning left I faced the check in desk which was flanked on either side by two offices. Wee Mike sat between the two of them in at the fishbowl. He looked confused to see me.
“What’re you doing here?” He asked getting up from behind the desk and heading into the office on his right to let me in.
“You said the OPP were here, I figured I’d join the party before I headed in.” I stepped into the office and shut the glass door behind me.
The receptionist in the other office smiled and waved; we’d shared the shift the other week in the other hospital.
“Oh that; yea no big deal; they brought in some elderly guy. Doesn’t seem to be any need for it but was just throwing it out there.” Mike shrugged and held up the door frame with his back.
He had to shift around a bit as he had pressed the radio on his hip into the door. It connected to a long coiled wire that in turn connected to a mic attached to his shirt. Lucky bastard even had a belt, cuffs and a baton by the looks of things.
“Look who’s all kitted out!” I laughed pointing out his gear. “Yea they just needed to charge the radios here; but I bought all my other stuff; I wasn’t waiting for the company to supply me.” He glanced himself over.
“You know they don’t want us to be carrying it here?” The confusion on my face must have been apparent because he said exactly what I was thinking.
“Yea; we’re Tier 2 trained and contracted; but they don’t think we actually need it. Even thought they’re charging them for T2’s, and we’re being paid as such.” He laughed. “I can link you to where I got my gear if you want, better to have it and not need it right?”
“Do that.” I nodded
We chatted a bit longer about things and I remarked about the amazingly legible handwriting of the other guards sharing the site as I looked over the log book. It’s a challenge to call any of the reports I’d been reading at the other sites handwriting. It’s also a challenge to call reading what I’d been doing. Deciphering was more apt.
Once the OPP left there really wasn’t any reason to keep hanging around; especially since I had to get out to Poonamalie shortly enough. Before I left though; Mike reminded me of something we’d spoken about a few weeks back. The Hospital had received a strange fax one evening; it apparently had received the same fax before; but Mike thought I’d like to take a look at the copies they’d made.
“Some weird shit man; figured you like your PI stuff and maybe you’d wanna take a look.” He fished the pages out of the logbook and handed them to me.
“Wow… yea you weren’t kidding!” I exclaimed after a cursory glance over the pages. “This’ll give me something to do in my exile tonight!”
“Maybe you can make more sense out of it than me man; that first page seems like a whole lot of blame. Could be something to it all though.” He waved his hand and started back for the fishbowl as I folded the pages and tucked them into my coat.
“Thanks for the busy work! Safe night eh!” I waved and headed out for my car.
Across town on my way out the highway; the still falling rain made a mirror the roadway; hidden behind the clouds the moon had no effect on the kaleidoscope of neon signage dancing off the surface as I cut through growing puddles with a satisfying hiss. Coiling my way along the Poonamalie Road I came to the last bend; ahead in the distance nestled next to the treelike was ‘probably a-guard’ Tom’s truck. Just where I expected to see him, even if I was half an hour early to relieve him. He’d parked in such a way that it was hard to drive up next to him to check how the evening had been; but slowly our vehicles came to rest beside one another, but only for very few seconds, he let out a ‘Have a good night.” And was off into the darkness behind me; his headlights playing across a dwindling treeline and gone.
I maneuvered the Heart of Gold up the lane and avoided the divers and massive potholes and brought it to rest in a safe an area as I could see. I’d picked up a nail in the last week and wasn’t keen on another. The only thing my feet found when I climbed out of the car though was mud, and lots of it. Throwing my gear over my shoulders I locked up and headed into the trees towards the site. Led along by the indents of the workers footprints it was clear to see that all the snow and ice was now replaced with a mire of sopping, gripping, and slick madness.
The site has changed much since I first took to working here, and overtime its less and less recognizable. The roadway at the bottom of the hill is now littered with broken wood and windswept garbage of sorts; the gate that usually stood closed has been lifted off its stands and thrown to one side amongst broken pallets and discarded objects, chunks of metal that could easily be supports or weapons. Lines of spent propane tanks stand between the canal and the road tied together along the tops with rope, then to a nearby tree. Large sandbags are now filled with chipped and broken rocks; dirt and other refuse. Huge erected structures covered in orange tarps jut upwards into the night doing everything they can to obstruct the light of the moon as it struggles to be seen against the winds rapidly shifting clouds.
Thatched here and there from one construct to another; there now a staggering array of electrical chords. Hastily zip-tied to this, lashed to that with a coil of rope, strung across this stretch of area and eventually making their ways down into the mouth of the cave; it too surrounded by the looming fabrications. Struggling through the slick my flash cuts across a large white metal box; the diesel pump that the workers have on site. The lid is normally closed and padlocked; tonight though it’s not. After dumping my gear in the (at least) dry office I made my way back across the gang plank arrangement of boards that made up my new path to check on the Diesel.
Not only had someone not locked it up when they left for the day, they hadn’t even bothered to close it. Some the paperwork stored in the lid looked damp, as I peered around inside. Behind me another forgotten lock; attached to a railcar equipment trailer, dangling slightly in the wind next to where it should be clasped and sealed, the hand to the door also out of place if keeping things shut and locked was going to be desired.
Around the other side of the office I made my way to check on the other storage room; no gang planks here so back into the mud; while not exactly deep I could still feel it clenching onto my feet as I went; each step I could only expect my foot to not come up when I wanted it to, thankfully I stayed upright and much to my surprise that storage areas was properly locked.
The far side of the site was much the same as the entrance, broken stone, cast aside pallets, some form of organized chaos. The only thing I could ascertain for sure was that the heavy vehicles were still where they needed to be. Things as in order as they could be I headed back for the office for some shelter from the rain.
Back inside the office I started cleaning a weeks worth of stone dust off the kettle so I could make coffee in it; and noted that someone had cracked the chair. As the water heated for my coffee I pulled out the pages that Wee Mike had given me and started to read them.
What appeared to immediately be mad ramblings still carried that tone, but some of the information therein was coming my way. It was being written by a man claiming to be Canada’s ‘LEGAL’ Prime-Minister, over the last 38 years. The Rt. Hon. Jean-Baptiste; John L.DeBruyne. I’d never heard of him before. He also appeared to be informing us that Hillary Clinton and many others amongst the US political core were actually Canada; and as an added bonus, they were men.
There were other added pieces here and there about our Prime-Ministers early days when the RCMP and OPP would beat him up, steal his birth certificate and hide him away in hotels in Ontario. More chilling were the rampant allegations of decapitations and rape amongst ranking officials, and the knowledge that the powers that be knew of these things.
Outside the rains subsided through the course of my reading but the winds kicked up; making a cacophony of the site as it tore past tarps, rattled scaffolding and generally made a nuisance of itself. Sipping at my coffee some more I put the pages down. Reading them straight down was one thing; but having to occasionally turn them side long to follow the addendum to each got tiresome; and the one entirely written in French was a task as my reading was sorely out of practice, but since from what I gathered much of it was the same pieces recurring in one facet or another. There was also encouragement to find him on the ‘World Facebook”, so I did just that. I was curious.
The small profile it brought up was clearly of someones grandfather. A nice enough looking man; plenty of grandkids or nieces and nephews it appeared. The open settings he had allowed me to dig through his pictures such as they were. Which led me to a mind boggling 60+ more pages of these writings, which I still aim to go back and read, and thankfully some happier pictures with family, birthdays, a New Years , etc.
During one round of comments on a picture he moved into a similar tirade as in his letters; following commenters never mentioned it. I didn’t expect them to really, but that still sparked the first rounds of pain. Then I bounced over to Google.
There I found a recounting of a man from the states (a satirical columnist of some sort) who actually made mention of DeBruyne in his article after having met him handing out Xerox’s in the subway in Calgary. He dropped some lines on his ideas but ultimately just had some fun with them and left the man out of it, thankfully.
Through the readings of the papers and some of the ones stored on his profile there were continual mentions of the death of ‘Our Mother’. How is ultimately unclear but its alleged to be a kidnapping and holding until death; known to RCMP and the Canadian and Government bodies? JFK factors in a few times as well. So I threw ‘Our Mother’s name into the query. This led to Ancestry checks, further queries, obituaries and the like until I found one of those ‘Who called me” websites. His name was all over it.
Having gotten lost in the pages themselves I hadn’t really been thinking about DeBruyne as much as what was being said. Now; I started to think about DeBruyne. There were about eight or nine pages, of people commenting on this particular phone number. All with the same set of stories. Late evening or early morning massive fax’s, to both private homes, and businesses alike. One woman worked for the Canada Revenue Agency, and had received the fax’s through a public line. Mike had received these four pages after they came through at the hospital! Sometimes it was 5 pages, sometimes 15 or more; all manner of differing places. Some recount phone calls and conversations even voicemails. That pain I was feeling was starting to sting.
These comments stretched back at least 5 years on the one site I was reading through. Many upset; only a few joking on the content. Far too many demeaned him; swore hatred and ire towards him. Then along came Stephanie… at least that what she left as a name. About two and a half years ago; through the reckoning of the comments; a block of text stood in contrast to the lines of hate and judgement.
She announced her disgust at the commenters; for such reckless hate and judgement. They didn’t know this man; they didn’t know what he had gone through nor who he really was. They thought him a crackpot, a conspiracy theorist and an annoyance. They didn’t know him as the pained, and troubled, but ultimately loving and supporting man he really was. This girl claimed to have known him for years; and was shocked at the maturity of adults when she herself was only a teen and could still understand when a person needed help rather than ridicule.
I admittedly skimmed through the rest of the pages, noticing that no one made any responses to Stephanie; but I’d felt it.
That pain is still sitting with me now; the winds have died and most of the shift has passed. I didn’t know what I was going to end up writing when I started going over those pages; I’d thought of something hopefully entertaining and somewhat humorous, maybe a little weird and spooky.
Instead I found a man fighting to try and bring light to some contorted facet of something damaged or lost inside him. Worse yet; I found someone who loved him; and they had to see how the world had been treating him.