Cures for Hunger Deni Béchard (easy books to read .TXT) 📖

“You know,” he told me, “I’m thinking about starting a new family.”

“You’d want that?” I asked. Nothing seemed more miserable to me.

“Why wouldn’t I? There’s Sara. She needs to calm down.”

“But are you two even together?”

“She drives my car. That Cavalier, the maroon one, it’s mine. I shouldn’t have been able to get it, not after the bankruptcy.” He spoke as if having the car were strange, but it was his interest in Sara that bothered me. She was only eighteen.

His eyes stilled, focusing in on me.

“Listen. I have a job for you. Some Indians are making a delivery tonight, and I want you to take care of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Business has been hard. It wasn’t easy to start up again. So I buy from the Indians. They can fish as much as they want. And they always have good quality.”

I tried to make my face show nothing. I didn’t say that what he was doing was illegal. That would be ridiculous. But this wasn’t the crime I wanted.

“They’re bringing a load of salmon to the place near the ferry. You can stay there for a few days. A girl who works for me lives there. She’ll explain things to you if you need help. There’s a road behind the house and some old freezers in the woods. The Indians have been there before. There’s also a scale. Make sure you use it. Don’t let them use theirs. And make sure you clean the ice off the plate if there’s any. You have to watch that they don’t weigh the salmon with ice in them. Check the cut where they were gutted.”

After a pause, he said, “There should be about two thousand pounds. You can do this?”

“Of course,” I said, not sure that I wanted to. But at least he trusted me and thought I could handle it.

“Just make sure nobody can see from the road. And I want you to do the weighing. You should be the one to read from the scale and write it down. You’ve seen me do it. It’s easy.”

✴

THE ROAD DESCENDED through rocky pine forest. The green numbers on the dash read 10:17, and the truck’s tires vibrated against the ridged surface of a bridge.

“She’s eighteen,” he said of the girl who worked at the ferry. “You guys should get along.”

The green trailer with a hand-lettered Fish ’n’ Chips sign was the same as I remembered, next to the misted river, just off the road where cars lined up. A few drivers stretched their legs as the ferry’s lights moved across the dark expanse.

Gravel crunched loosely beneath the tires, and my father parked. The rutted and muddy driveway continued a short distance into the forest. Yellow paint peeled from the house like birch bark, and a strand of green and red bulbs hung between a post and the snack bar awning, their color flaking off, showing bright specks of light. A girl came to the door. Brown, curly hair framed her face, her skin faintly olive. She wore jeans, and a thin white shirt hung against her breasts.

Little was said beyond introductions, my father the only one speaking, the girl’s eyes darting back to him after each time she glanced at me. Her name was Jasmine, and he told her I’d be sleeping on the couch. She forced a smile, her front teeth separated by a gap like a coin slot.

He and I then walked back along the driveway. Beneath the pines were the pale rectangles of two ancient freezers. He told me to put the salmon in them and handed me a wad of twenties.

“A thousand dollars,” he said. “Don’t give it to them until the end.”

After he’d left, Jasmine and I hardly spoke. She lingered in the kitchen.

“I put some blankets on the couch,” she told me.

“Thanks.”

“Are you okay? Is there anything you need?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Okay, well, good night,” she said and went upstairs.

The room with the couch had a scantily decorated Christmas tree that leaned in its stand, anchored to the outlet by a string of lights. I lay and stared at the ceiling, trying to feel that what I was doing was important.

Beyond the threadbare curtains, a line of cars gradually formed at the ferry landing, their exhaust rising in the glow of taillights. At the entrance, a light changed, and the night’s mist turned green. The cars crept forward. Then the mist shone red again, eddying, settling against the asphalt.

I had no idea when I should expect the delivery. From the couch, I watched the line build up and load. A cop parked next to the restrooms, to sleep or lie in wait for those who sped along the lonely straightaway that extinguished itself at the river.

✴

THE POLICE CAR was gone by midnight, when a green truck approached, body filler at its wheel wells and door edges. It turned into the driveway and drove past the house. A moment later, a small blue pickup followed.

With a notepad and pen, I went outside and followed the tracks over the brittle ice.

The drizzle had stopped, and with the cold, the mist had almost lifted. The moon, emerging from clouds, hung over the river. Everything seemed amplified, vivid, washed in adrenaline—the late ferry run, the sound of the heavy engine across the water, the vessel’s square bulk folding back the current, the river dragging its stiff belly against the night.

Four barrel-chested men stood behind the truck, the lid of a wooden crate against its side and a scale on the tailgate. They wore baseball caps, their hair to their shoulders. Without introducing myself, I told them about the scale near the house, surprised to find myself breathless.

“We have our own. It’s better,” one of them said. He was shorter and burlier than the others, his face lost beneath his visor.

“I’m supposed to use my father’s scale,” I repeated.

They had begun setting up and paused.

“We’re using our scale,” the shortest man repeated.

“Okay,” I conceded and then reconsidered. “But he