Judy
THAT WAS THE SUMMER all the non-smokers died. It was a hot summer, murderously hot. Everyone who had air conditioning kept it going day and night, so of course the first thing they checked was Legionnaire’s Disease.
Frank and I didn’t have air conditioning, so we slept through the days with the fan on, and come dusk we’d climb up on the roof with Judy, our cigarettes, a bottle, and Judy’s dog, Hamilton. Hamilton didn’t smoke and drink like the rest of us, but he survived that summer anyway. The Tobacco Fiasco, as it came to be known, turned out not to affect dogs, but we didn’t know that at the time. Legionnaire’s Disease didn’t pan out, and after that we didn’t know anything at all, and tried not to think too much about what we didn’t know. That’s why we spent so much time up on the roof, getting drunk. Judy was up there with us, but she was thinking.
Right after the Tobacco Fiasco got cleared up we left for the east coast to watch the whales die. It was a strange thing to do, drive all those miles to watch them die. It was Judy’s idea; she said she wanted to document it. “Document what?” Frank had asked, like she was crazy.
She was crazy. “We’ve got to document it,” she’d said, like we were crazy. We were, but we listened to her, because she’d been right about the cigarettes. We listened to her even though she stuffed the trunk of Frank’s Volkswagen so full of camera equipment that we hardly had room for the tent.
She’d done the same thing when all those people started dying. While Frank and I slept Judy would be out there making notes and taking photographs. In the evenings she’d join us on the roof, and, although she’d already been up all day, she’d spend the night measuring her gathered data against each new theory that entered her head between jokes, cigarettes, and swigs off the bottle.
We ran out of cigarettes around four thirty one of those mornings, and it was Judy who offered to walk up to the 7-Eleven to pick up a deck. She explained that she was the least drunk of the three of us, and not to worry, that she’d take Hamilton with her.
They ran all the way home from College Street. Frank and I couldn’t understand it, what with Judy’s smoker’s lungs. Even Hamilton was breathless by the time they got back up to the roof, and he’s a big, non-smoking dog.
Judy waved the pack of cigarettes around like it was a live grenade. It was.
“We all smoke like forest fires till sunrise!” She yelled it so loud she woke the neighbours, but Judy didn’t care; she knew she was on to something. Frank and I were too drunk to get excited, but Judy ran downstairs, cigarette in hand, to dial the hot line to the Surgeon General’s office. She read them her statistics for at least an hour, and when she got off the phone she came back out on the roof and worked on the second bottle with us. By the time it was finished, daylight had arrived, so we called it a night and all went downstairs to sleep.
The headlines made the afternoon papers. Judy never did get any credit for it, except that people stopped dying. Tobacco prices rose faster than interest rates until the government got nervous and imposed sanctions; they knew it would look bad if people were spending so much money on cigarettes they couldn’t afford to eat, never mind pay their taxes. After that, prices levelled off, but by then every backyard in the city was planted with tobacco, and we were already halfway to the east coast.
They were huge, pale grey things, and they’d come moaning out of the sea in that white light you see only on the ocean at sunrise. Just when you thought you’d seen the last one, another would appear, its cavernous head lunging sadly for the shoreline. Judy would be there to greet it, embracing her tripod as though it was some strange prehistoric tree, counting the seconds till the shot was perfect. Frank and I walked out to the road after three days, leaving Judy on the beach with the Volks, her cameras, and all those dying whales. She hardly saw us go. She didn’t even notice when we took Hamilton with us. He was a carnivorous dog, but after three days all those whale carcasses had him as grossed out as we were.
We rented a Toyota in the nearest town and headed for Halifax, intending to get hammered. In Yarmouth we stopped at the Yellow Dog bar for a drink and directions. In spite of the name, they wouldn’t let us take Hamilton in, so we left him tied to an elm tree outside. We got inside and ordered a couple of drinks from Eddie. Eddie was the big, friendly guy behind the bar. The second our drinks arrived, Hamilton began to howl like all get out. Eddie looked at us. He waited for the dog to stop howling. He looked at us some more. Finally he jerked his thumb towards the door. “That animal out there belong to you guys?”
Frank and I looked at one another. We both got uncomfortable. We looked at one another too long. Frank looked at Eddie, saying, “Yeah, yeah, it’s our dog.”
“Then go outside and get it to shut up.” Maybe Eddie wasn’t such a friendly guy after all. Frank went. Eddie turned to me. “You guys aren’t from around here, are you?”
“Around where?” I felt like a jerk. I found myself wishing Judy were here; she always knew what to say to guys like this.
“You from the city, right?” I knew what he meant by the city. To guys like that the city is the city. Any city, but especially the one we were from.
“Yeah.”
Hamilton hadn’t stopped howling. “You sure that’s your dog?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, it sure as hell ain’t your friend’s dog, ’cause if it was, he’d have stopped howling by now. And if it was yours, I’d wonder why you’re not the one out there.” I sat there, not saying a thing. Some bars are like that. “Let’s see, you’re from the city, it’s not your dog. Makes me wonder. Another thing, what did you say you were in the neighbourhood for?”
“Ah, you know, lie around on the beach. Catch some rays.”
“Only one beach for miles around here, fella. And if you’ve been there you’d know it wasn’t the kind of beach you want to do much lying around on.”
“Oh.” I was running out of snappy answers. Hamilton still hadn’t stopped howling.
“Go outside, untie the dog, bring him in. When you get inside you can tell me who the dog belongs to and what happened to them.” I did as I was told. Frank came in with me, looking bewildered. Hamilton wasn’t bewildered. When he saw Eddie he stopped howling right away. Eddie patted him thoughtfully and brought him a big dish of cool water. “Don’t worry, kid, we’re getting to it.” He looked at me. “You got an answer for me yet, fella?”
“It’s Judy’s dog, Eddie.”
“And you left Judy on the beach by herself?”
“You don’t understand, Eddie, she—”
“I understand more than you think. You don’t leave anybody on that beach alone.”
“Why not?” Frank was starting to sound as stupid as me.
“Well, think about it. She might run out of smokes.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“I’ll forgive you, considering as you’re not so bright.”
“But Judy can take of herself, she’s very—”
“She takes care of you, right?”
“Huh?” Frank looked at me, horror stricken.
“What would have happened if you or me had decided to quit smoking last month, before she—”
“Fat chance, Ace, but I get your drift.”
“See?” said Eddie. “Besides, that’s a bad beach. You shouldn’t let people stay there alone. Them whales hypnotizes people.”
“Hypnotizes?” Frank laughed.
“Frank,” I said, “she was a little, you know…”
“Right,” said Eddie. “The drinks are on me. Now you guys clear out and go get your friend. And if you decide to change your mind, just remember how happy her dog will be to see her.” Hamilton howled on cue. “Attaboy.”