Hosea had enjoyed working with his Aunt Minty. Every time he came into work she’d have the coffee made and sometimes fresh pastry, and she’d smile and say to Hosea, “Good morning, sweetie, you’re looking well.” From time to time Hosea murmured those words to himself under his breath as he stomped the snow from his boots or took off his coat, hoping the sisters working behind the counter wouldn’t hear him and look at each other in that way.
But now he was alone. And that was just fine because he needed to make a pertinent entry in his scribbler. Under the Dying and Potentially Dead column, he carefully printed the name Leander Hamm. Then he turned to the very back of the scribbler and, under the Newly Born and Rumoured to be Born he printed the name Veronica Epp and the notation, “expecting triplets,” and then he added—“high risk.” Drumming his pen against his desk for a moment, he returned the scribbler to its place in the drawer.
He glanced out his window and saw the dog. The same dog he had seen on his way to work after visiting Veronica Epp. A woman had been crouching down and holding the dog by its collar and had asked Hosea if he knew whose dog it was. Hosea had been concerned that the dog was not on a leash but running freely, unsupervised, all over Algren. He asked the woman if she would call the pound, or actually Phil Whryahha, the man in Algren who, proudly appointed by Hosea himself, was responsible for stray pets. And that’s when John Funk (no relation to Hosea), the caretaker of St. Bartholomew’s Church, had walked up and suggested to the woman that she simply let the dog go. That the dog would surely find its way home. There was hardly a car on Algren’s streets that would run the risk of hitting it, he’d said, and the dog seemed friendly enough. Let it go, he’d said. It’ll be fine.
Hosea had stood there, dumbfounded. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Such a simple and obvious solution. The woman let go of the collar, the caretaker strolled back to St. Bart’s, and the dog slowly walked away, towards the edge of town. Hosea stood there. He had said something. Something like “very good.” Or “there you go.” But he had felt unsure of himself. This dog business had jarred him.
He focussed on his plan to bring the Prime Minister to Algren. It could be a good thing for everybody in Algren, he thought. It would be an exciting day, a coup for a small prairie town, a psychological boost, and a surefire guarantee that Hosea would be re-elected, when the time came, as Algren’s mayor.
Hosea whipped open the second drawer from the top of his desk and pulled out the letter from the House of Commons, dated February 12, 1996. “Dear Mayor,” it began. Hosea had read and reread, folded and unfolded this letter so often that it had become slightly torn down the middle. He had carefully fixed it with a piece of Scotch tape so the tear was hardly noticeable. Hosea moved his finger across the photocopied signature, John Baert, Prime Minister. The contents of the letter were by now so familiar to him that he could sit back in his chair, close his eyes, and recite it from memory:
Dear Mayor,
As part of the federal government’s commitment to rural growth, I have promised to visit Canada’s smallest town for 24 hours, on July 1, 1996. Algren may be one of our candidates. We will inform you of further plans at a later date, providing you are interested in participating in the aforementioned event.
Sincerely, John Baert, Prime Minister
Hosea sat at his desk and imagined the day the Prime Minister would come to Algren. Hosea would be there to greet him, with Lorna at his side. He’d have bought a new suit in Winnipeg, Lorna a new dress and maybe new shoes. The sun would be shining, the high school band would play some rousing march, little Tilly Bond, the cutest kid in town, would present the Prime Minister with a bouquet of flowers. The billboard announcing Algren to the world would be repainted and so would some of the storefronts along Main Street. He and the Prime Minister would shake hands warmly and the Prime Minister would pat him on the back and congratulate him, would take him into his confidence, and they would exchange jokes and leadership tips and anecdotes and discuss crisis management and possibly even correspond after the visit. At dinner, prepared by the Elks or the Kinettes and served in the Euphemia Funk Memorial Arena, Curling Club, and Recreational Complex, Hosea and the Prime Minister would raise their glasses for the photographers and toast to hmmm, whatever, rural prosperity, perhaps. There would be stories written in the papers and pictures taken, bearing eternal witness to the event and to Hosea’s and Algren’s victory, to their reigning status as Canada’s smallest town.
It would be a day like no other. Hosea now sat way back in his chair, his legs up on his desk, his hands clasped behind his head, his thumbs making circles on the nape of his neck. So lost in thought was he that he didn’t notice his pen roll off his desk and onto the shiny hardwood floor. Even Hosea’s sexual fantasies couldn’t hold a candle to his fantasy of meeting the Prime Minister and having Algren shown off to the world. Yes, it would be a day like no other, that’s for sure, thought Hosea and leaned back even farther so that his swivel chair almost fell over backwards and he had to lurch forward and grip the hard wooden edge of his desk to keep his balance. He must have slammed the palm of his right hand hard against the wood, because that pain triggered a flood of memories and now Hosea pictured another day that was full of pomp and circumstance and nervousness and … what? What was it about that day, anyway? Hosea wondered.
He had been outside playing in the small yard behind the house on First Street. He hadn’t had a jacket on, or was it shoes he hadn’t had on? Had it been March or July? Well, he had picked flowers later that day, so it must have been July. But hadn’t he just come home from school? Yes, of course, he had walked home with Tom who had lived across the street. Well, actually they had run home because two older fellows were chasing them and one of them had taken Hosea’s jacket. That was it. He wasn’t wearing his jacket, because the older boy had taken it, and it must have been a day in May or June. Sometime when flowers could grow in Manitoba. Roses. He was sure they were roses because they had pricked the palm of his hand when he held them.
“Run, Hosea! Run!” Tom had already been caught as usual and managed to yell out the simple instructions to Hosea before a big hand was clamped over his mouth and he was taken away for his session. These sessions consisted of various activities. Tom and Hosea, for one year in particular, were the whipping boys for a group of older kids from school. Sometimes they were forced to crouch on their hands and knees right below Evangeline Goosen’s bedroom window and the older boys would stand on their backs and watch Evangeline change from her school clothes to her play clothes.
Anyway, on this day they had managed to get his jacket but not him. Hosea didn’t want to go inside his house, he remembered, because Euphemia might get mad at him for losing his jacket. He would never have told her what had really happened. Even now, at age fifty-two, Hosea shuddered to think of his mother marching over to the home of one of the big boys and telling his parents what he had done and demanding that her son’s jacket be returned immediately. But Euphemia wouldn’t have been angry, really, thought Hosea. She would have shrugged and said something like, “Well, easy come, easy go.” And then she would have gone to the hall closet and pulled out one of her old curling sweaters and rolled up the sleeves and made Hosea try it on for size. “There you go, pumpkin, a new jacket.”