Free Nights Below Station Street by David Adams Richards Page A

know, except it seemed perfectly obvious he should be there.
    They had sent for a guard because they didn’t speak English well and he didn’t speak French. He finally made it clear that he was going to send for his family and bringthem all to Quebec, and with that resolved, he started on his way again.
    As always, he found a tavern and forgot all about going to Quebec. Two days later he was in Truro, Nova Scotia, drinking with people who had become his friends, and who were all going to come and visit him. He remembered then that he had promised himself he would never drink again. He had had all the will in the world to stop. He had even started his own business, of auto body repair, and he had had cards printed, and even had taken out ads on the radio. But though again, as always, and like many drunks, he was capable of making money quite handily, he got drunk. And once he was drinking, whatever he had been doing seemed all wrong and all worthless, and something else had to be done, something which was different from anything he had ever done before.
    Next he found himself in jail in Richibucto. And after a day on the road, with seventeen beer to sober himself up, he found himself sitting in a chair in the kitchen with Adele trying to feed him soup.
    As he told her this story, Adele said nothing. Now and then she would sniff, as if she wasn’t listening, and turn a page of her magazine.
    “Now I know it’s a disease,” he said hopefully, almost to himself. “I never knew that before.”
    He looked at his hands, and rubbed them together, and then looked at the picture she had of Ralphie sitting on her night table.
    The curler on her head made her look as if she had a unicorn horn just above her forehead.
    Then Joe told her that he drank when he was young, but that maybe he couldn’t drink anymore, and was going to do his best not to drink again. But that didn’t mean they would ever be rich. He smiled clumsily. He said he remembereda lot more than she might think – yes, he did. He remembered when they lived downtown, and there was no heat in the apartment, and Adele got colds. He remembered that And Rita almost lost Milly, and the social workers came and were going to take away the children. He remembered that. He remembered how Adele used to carry soup cans about in her dress pockets, and a big can opener, because she thought that’s what was needed to cure his hangover, and she would hand it up to him when he came home – and that one time she kept a doll he’d won for her at the circus under her pillow. He bet she didn’t remember that. He smiled and looked about, and then coughed. And then suddenly without even knowing he was going to do it, he asked her to forgive him.
    “I see,” she said, as he spoke. “I see.”
    She glanced at him quickly and her eyes got round, and then she glanced back at her book.
    “I see,” she said. “Yes, of course – I see.”

The Russian ship Gorki had been stranded here for three weeks. A Petty Officer, Terrisov, became friendly with Myhrra. And she showed him about the river, took him to the curling club, and explained the rules of the game to him, and for a time seemed to forget her problems.
    There were tours of the Russian ship organized, and times allotted for the Russians to go skating. The ship was being repaired, and for a time it was only natural to be friendly to stranded foreigners until they left. For some reason, at this time Ralphie became friendly with Terrisov as well. They discussed hockey and boxing, professional versus amateur sport, and complimented each other on their respective teams. One afternoon when Myhrra was with them, Myhrra said someone had told her that the Russians were superior in hockey, and in sports in general. She looked at Ralphie and sighed deeply, as if she was now tired of most Canadians.
    Terrisov diplomatically said that though the Canadians were great hockey players, what bothered him was that they refused to put fun in