The Disillusionists cont'd...

This was the second time in as many days that Alexis and Jay had been down this road. Instead of having had "the night off" as Mike had claimed, they had driven a pair of cars deep into the forest. One of them being Mike's and the other a rental, which had been procured earlier. At a pre-determined spot on the back-country road mapbook, they would leave the rental behind and drive back into town in the Lexus. It had taken them a little longer than they had planned because they ran out of gas and had to walk several kilometres in the dark to the rental, take it into town for a can of gas (when they had called Mike at Corps) and then fill up and return the rental to it's original spot. More or less.

Late the next day they got back to the city but had to concoct a story about Jay being in jail overnight for disorderly conduct. Grunter and May didn't seem to notice their absence so they never mentioned the story... Jay and Alexis couldn't decide however if there was any gas left in the rental.

After picking up more supplies, May and I had spent an uneventful first night in the motorhome. We had parked in the street outside of Mike's place and tried the intercom but he was nowhere to be found. I volunteered for the couch, which when not slid out, squeezed far into the living room. May told a couple of stories about trips she had taken with her parents as she lay in the bedroom at the back of the coach. She had fonder memories of a tent trailer they had owned since before she could walk. Later they moved up to a C-class, which Buck had let her drive while he operated the pedals. Throughout the years they had pretty well covered the country. This camper, the one they were in now, was an anniversary gift May's parent's had given to themselves. I felt honoured to have been entrusted with it.

Back in the day, when we were working together, when they knew us by name down at city hall, when you had to physically go downtown to do a title search, we were a perfect team. It was fun because not everything was already done for you. There were ledgers that hadn't been cracked open in years - entire histories written on one page. File card cabinets which smelled like over-ripe bananas. Information hand-written and processed and archived. I lay on my back and stared at the dark ceiling.

To hook up with these guys seemed like an act of desperation. What little fun I had had so far had been with May. Everyone else was so determined and selfish. I wondered where she was from, why she had never mentioned her parent's before or at least how I couldn't remember her mentioning them. Then thinking about having lunch one day, trying to cross-reference the owner of a building, The Chichester - the son of some daughter-in-law's sister who bought two buildings and had tried to buy another... It was very confused, trying to remember a past when I had not really been paying attention. If nobody had time for anything now, what would they have time for in the future?