SERIAL FICTION

Delroy and the Cheese — Part Eleven

An unscheduled ride into town and the search begins

This is the eleventh chapter of an 18 chapter series about life in a Canadian tree-planting camp. If you’re new, you may want to start at the beginning or go to the complete list of Delroy and the Cheese chapters.

Delroy was not fine with it. In fact, he was pretty much the opposite of fine.

“You ATE my CHEESE!” He was literally shaking.

“Well, yeah,” said Susan. “But I didn’t mean to. It was just so damn tasty.”

He threw his arms up in the air. “That cheese wasn’t meant to be eaten! But if it was going to be eaten, then it should have been me who did the eating of it! Not you! It wasn’t your cheese to eat!”

“Well, yeah, I understand that,” said Susan. “I’m sorry.”

“You still have the cheddar,” said Andrea.

“What good is cheddar?” shouted Delroy. “Cheddar is not pecorino!” He didn’t know what to do with himself, so he walked around in circles, flapping his arms to try shake the anger out of them.

“So what happens now,” I asked Griff. “Are we fired?”

“Well, shit, Stu. I don’t know. I’ve never had to deal with something like this. Why did you have to do such a dumb-ass thing in the first place?”

Griff was in a bit of a bind. If he fired three of his best planters, it was going to be hard to finish the contract on time. But he did have a point. Stealing was bad. He couldn’t afford to let us get away with it. On the other hand, it was just a piece of cheese for fuck’s sake.

“Damnit, Delroy! Stand still!” he said. Delroy stopped. He crossed his arms and stood glaring at us. “Okay. Normally, if someone stole something from somebody else in camp, I would fire their ass immediately. But I really don’t want to do that if I don’t have to. I said I wouldn’t fire you if Delroy got his cheese back. That still holds true. Get his cheese back and you can keep your jobs. I don’t know what kind of fancy-ass cheese Delroy was carrying in his pocket but it plainly can’t be replaced by a chunk of cheddar.”

“How the hell are we going to track down a wedge of posh Italian cheese in a treeplanting camp? We’re in the middle of nowhere?” I asked.

“Not my problem,” said Griff. “I’ll give you a ride into town tomorrow. I need to make a garbage and grocery run anyway. You three can come with me and help out. Maybe there’s some of Delroy’s cheese in town some place. You won’t be coming back to camp until you find some though, so you should pack accordingly.”

The next morning we met at Griff’s truck. Susan and Andrea were laughing when I arrived. I think they may have been discussing yesterday’s events in the shower tent. Both of the girls jumped in the back seat, leaving me to ride up front with Griff. All things considered, as a punishment, this didn’t seem too bad. We’d lose a day or two of planting, but when you’ve been in a bush camp for five weeks, any excuse to go to town is a good one. We could only hope that Fort Nelson, which was the only town anywhere near us, would have a gourmet cheese shop.

It was a couple hours' drive from the camp to the town. Griff didn’t say much. He just drove. The girls were talking to each other in the back but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. It was a gravel road and the sound of the tires thrashing the stones against the bottom of the truck drowned out whatever they were saying. I spent the time watching the endless wall of trees speed by and dreaming of all the wonderful things we were going to see once we hit town. Flush toilets. Warm showers. Chocolate bars. Cold beer in frosty pint glasses. A bed with actual cotton sheets. Maybe even clean sheets. And pavement! Smooth, flat, easy to walk on pavement!

The day-dreams helped to keep at bay the slight nagging worry that if we didn’t find the cheese we would all be fired, out of work, and stranded in a town 1000km from home.

Once we got to Fort Nelson, the first thing we did was unload the garbage at the dump. Dumps are bustling, fascinating places that assault the senses. In particular, they wallop your nose with that sharp, rotten orange peel smell. But they are also an assault on the ears. Dumps are noisy places. In addition to any man-made noise, there is the constant screeching of the crows.

Crows are extremely angry birds. They’re always pissed off about something. They seemed outraged we came to their dump in the first place and they obviously didn’t think much of Griff’s driving. They were absolutely livid about the quality of our garbage and where we put it. We just couldn’t do anything right as far as they were concerned. Crows are supposed to be among the smartest of birds. I’m not sure about that, but they are definitely the most judgemental.

After the dump, the next stop was to drop the girls off at the grocery store with a list of things to get for the cooks. Then Griff and I went to get propane and a few other odds and ends. We were all hoping that the grocery store might have some pecorino, but that wasn’t the case. The closest they had was a block of ungrated parmesan. The girls bought that as a backup but we were pretty sure it wasn’t going to cut it with Delroy. They showed it to Griff after we finished loading the truck with the groceries. He agreed. “Delroy was pretty clear about the cheese he wanted. And even I can tell that isn’t it.”

“Well there’s got to be more places where we can look in this town than just this one store,” said Andrea. “We can’t give up now.”

“No you can’t,” said Griff. “But I can’t spend my whole life looking for cheese. I’ve got to head back to camp. I’ll drop you at the motel.”

“Are you really going to leave us here?” asked Andrea.

“I thought I made things pretty clear. You stole something. You’ve got to replace it. The camp is due for a day off in a couple of days. I’ll be back then with most of the crew. If you haven’t got the cheese by then, I’ll get someone to pack up your stuff and bring it out to you. And then you’ll be on your own.”

Next chapter…

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