“It’s just like plugging a telephone into the wall,” Harry instructed from below.
Resisting the urge to point out that most people didn’t plug their phones into walls anymore, Buddy reached inside the Looner Module, inserted the little plastic connector into its socket beneath the kitchen cabinets, then pushed. It clicked into place. “Got it,” he said, stepping back, hoping Harry wouldn’t see from his position on the ground the evidence of last night’s dinner with Andrea, still cluttering the camper’s table and counter.
“You’ve gotta remove the steps.”
Buddy unhitched the aluminium stairs, collapsed them, and moved them away from the camper. He tried not to think of her, asleep beside him the morning after.
“Okay. Now what you want to do is lift the camper high as you can on its four jacks using the single ‘up’ button in the centre, there.” He pointed to a blue square on the controller.
“Up?”
“Yup. Up means the jacks go down and the camper goes up. Got it?”
“Seems kind of backward to me.”
“Up means camper up; down means camper down. That’s all you’ve got to remember.”
“Okay,” Buddy said doubtfully.
“Well? What are you waiting for? This isn’t Cape Canaveral. No countdown or anything like that.”
Buddy paused a second more, the controller cradled in his hands, sighed, then pushed the button with his thumb. The jack motors whined complainingly in unison, and like a lumbering ox awakened from hibernation, the Looner Module lurched off its trestles onto its skinny legs. Hang on! he pleaded, imagining Andrea in the belly of the beast, jolted by its clumsy movements.
“Don’t stop, whatever you do,” Harry hollered.
“Why not?”
“Just keep going. That’s it. She’s cleared the horses!”
“What do I do?” Buddy fretted.
“Keep going! You need a few more inches to clear the bed of the pickup. Don’t stop!”
Buddy restrained the urge to whoop. To him, the miraculous levitation of his home away from home seemed as magnificent as a calf struggling for the very first time onto its spindly legs. How could anything so ungainly, so mechanically inept, actually hoist itself into the air without tipping over?
“Good, good, a little more, a little more, stop!”
He let go of the button, and the groaning motors quit in unison, as if giving in to exhaustion, the camper poised precariously, unsure what to do now that it was standing.
“Now you gotta clear all the stuff out from underneath,” Harry said. “No need to hurry,” he added, sensing Buddy’s uneasiness. “She won’t tip over or anything. Take your time.”
Glad to hear that! Buddy thought, heaving the beams and horses out from under the camper, stowing them along the edge of the drive. “Ready,” he said, glancing up toward the Sanderson’s monster pickup truck, wondering how the hell he was going to get it under the camper without knocking it over.
“All’s you’ve got to do is line it up, then back in slow and straight, just like I said,” Harry coached. “I’ll guide you.”
Bernice suddenly appeared at the gate in the hedge. “I just had to come watch,” she apologized, as if she hadn’t been hiding behind the foliage the whole time. “Harry doesn’t like me watching when he’s loading up the camper, but I couldn’t resist. You’re amazing, Buddy!”
Harry rolled his eyes. “For christ-sakes,” he grumped. “You’d think he built a space station right here in our drive. It’s not rocket science, you know, putting a camper onto a pickup.”
“Oh, stop being such a grouch,” she chided. “And Buddy, get over here so I can take your picture with old Mr. Stink-Eye. You’ll never do this a first time again, so we have to get it into our family album.”
She raised a plastic Kodak to her eye, urging them to get closer together and to stand in front of the camper ‘so people will know what’s going on,’ then snapped the photo. “There,” she said. “That’s close enough to the end of the roll that we can take it in and have it developed… Can you do that for me, Buddy? There’s no place in town that handles this kind of film anymore. The closest place is London Drugs in Duncan.”
“Sure.” Buddy nodded.
“Now,” Harry complained. “Can we get on with it before we forget what we’re supposed to be doing?”
“Of course, dear,” Bernice smiled indulgently.
He could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he’d driven a truck of any kind, so Buddy climbed into the Sandersons’ ‘dually’ with a deep sense of foreboding.
“She’s lined up pretty good already. All’s you have to do is start her up and back in real slow,” Harry said. “Oh, and when you start her, just turn the key half-way in the ignition and let the glow plugs heat up. There’s a little orange light goes off when they’re ready. It only takes half a sec.”
Glow plugs! Buddy smiled.
He climbed in and twisted the key until the dash console lit up, then waited for the orange light to flick off. Then he twisted the key another quarter turn to crank the engine. The diesel turned over once, then caught, a grumpy animal shaking off the deep sleep of hybernation and rumbling ominously. He released the emergency brake cautiously, clunked the gear shifter into reverse, and eased his foot off the brake. Grudgingly, the one-ton rolled back, its box edging under the camper.
“You’re good!” Harry shouted. “Keep on coming. Easy. Easy.”
Twisting round in the seat, Buddy checked his progress through the cab’s rear window, then concentrated on the side mirrors, keeping the box aligned, inch-by-inch, until, with a slight bump, the Looner Module docked. He hit the brake, put the truck into park, and turned off the engine, breathing a sigh of relief.
“Wahoo!” Harry punched the air with his fist. “You done her, Buddy. First try.”
Another fifteen minutes, and they had the camper chained and torqued onto the bed of the truck. Harry slapped Buddy on the back and shambled through the hedge gate into VORLand’s end. Buddy hooked the aluminium steps onto their bracket by the camper door, then clambered up.
“That was fun,” Andrea said, her disembodied voice emerging from the bunk.”
“It might not have been if Harry’d known you were in here. Or if I’d knocked the damn thing over trying to get it onto the truck.”
“Well, thanks for the ride,” she laughed. “Gotta go. I have a dog needs feeding and walking. Can you bring my stuff over later?”
“Yeah.” He listened to her pulling on her jeans. The rustling of her blouse as she buttoned up. Imagined her graceful movements. Her irresistable yet disturbing presence. Laughed, remembering how shocked they’d been when Harry thumped on the side of the camper, summoning Buddy to his scheduled morning task.
She hummed a favourite tune, caressed his cheek, and smiled. “It was wonderful,” she said.
He wasn’t so sure. Did he detect a note of forgiveness in her passing farewell? Was it an act of benediction?
I got a man with a slow hand, I got a ma-an with an easy touch…
TOO SOON, he remembered, and TOO YOUNG, but definitely not too pushy. That surprised him—her patient, gentle ministrations.
“You, Mister, are an incredible lover,” she said. “A gentle man. I felt warm, and happy, and appreciated for all the right reasons all night long. It was lovely.”
“Want me to make sure the coast is clear?” he asked, as she slipped behind him and opened the door.
“Nah,” she said. “It’ll be okay.”
Then she was gone, except for the sound of her receding footsteps crunching on the gravel outside.
Next: Pavement’s End