By CATHERINE DOOK
this machismo was terribly sexy and I was reluctant to get out of bed, but John said he wanted breakfast, so aſter I got dressed I pulled out the frypan and campstove and prepared a feast of bacon and eggs and beans. If John Darling could slay mosquitoes, I could humbly and submissively cook food. Now, I’d been complaining about the evils of meat glue for over 500 km, and I
The Hero
We woke up in Valemount in the Rocky RV Park and Campground to a splattering of rain on the roof of our van. “Did you hear the thundering and
lightening and train whistles last night?” John asked. I opened one eye. “I’ll tell you what
I didn’t hear,” I said. “I didn’t hear the whine of mosquitoes.” I kissed my husband good morning.
“Darling, I’m very proud of you.” We’ve been married nearly 16 years, and the night before had brought out a ruthless- hunter side to my husband I’d never seen before. Naked from the waist up, his blue eyes darting wildly in all directions, and with a look of determined fury on his face, John can snatch a mosquito out of the air with one hand and squash it into a grease spot before it knows what hit it. We’d slept the night surrounded by a litter of mosquito corpses, and not one whine had I heard though I’d strained my ears to listen. Naturally, I thought all
noticed to my consternation that the strips of bacon I’d bought for our trip WOULD not brown, but lay in the frypan like so many large pale worms. Not meat glue, but surely something as dreadful. But John gobbled his breakfast without a murmur of complaint. Te wholesale slaughter from the night before must have worked up his appetite. I washed up the dishes, then came back from a garbage run to find the van motor on and John sitting in the driver’s seat. “Tis a hint?” I asked with a grin. “It might be,” he said. “Jasper next, then Grande Cache.” Upon driving past the entrance of the RV Park, we came across Anne Lee, who
with her husband Philip runs the campsite. We’d met them on our last trip north and liked them very much, so I asked if I could have my picture taken with them. “Kim chee,” Anne said as the photograph was snapped, and I laughed. All my Korean friends love kim chee. As we drove away, John snatched a mosquito out of the air and crushed it, then
switched hands on the steering wheel faster than I could follow and squashed another bug against the driver’s side window, leaving a mortal smear as a warning to other presumptuous insects. I sat breathless with admiration. Aſter a few more kilometres, there was a vacuum of insects on John’s side of the
van and only a few of them whining on mine. Te spider, who had taken up residence by the windshield, crawled out of an air vent to look at me reproachfully, before disappearing along one strand of his web. Just then John noticed that the centre panel of the console had joggled loose again. He ‘tsked’ and began fiddling with it with his right hand, then he dropped the steering wheel and slapped a mosquito to death against the window with the other. I cleared my throat. “My darling,” I said, “Perhaps you could leave the console until we park.” “But it’s loose,” John said. He sounded aggravated, like Rambo might have had he
found a problem with one of his machine guns, such as a loose decorative plate or a scratch along the barrel. “It’s not going to actually fall off,” I argued. “True,” John said, and he concentrated on his driving for awhile. We turned east onto Highway 16, and before we knew it we were abreast Mount
Robson and the start of the Rockies. Along the highway lay giant boulders, cast by the hand of God. Te rivers we crossed were all swollen and greenish-grey. Tey we drove through clouds and we could see the first snow-capped peaks. As we drove across the Rockies, the highway closed
in and folded upon itself. Moose Lake stretched for miles. John killed so many mosquitoes, the body count was up to 12 by Jasper. At the park entrance the young woman attendant
said, “Hello, Bonjour,” as if she meant it, and we were charmed, but as John unrolled the window to talk to her at least four more mosquitoes flew into the cab. John rolled the window up as fast as he could and the van lurched forward. Grey striated mountains sat heaved up from the earth, then peaks, jagged and wonderful. We slowed down in the wildlife zone to gawk at the view and watch four molting goats unconcernedly nibble grass on a steep bank by the
Catherine with Anne & Philip Lee at Rocky RV Park and Campground in Valemount, BC
22 RVT 156 • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
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