Pontypool Changes Everything

The detective looks like a hockey player. He has a penalty box chin and eyes that recede way up into the cheap seats, the greys, faint in a mist beneath his heavy brow. His tie flips across his chest like a cat’s tail, alive, kinking against his knuckles for attention. The suit is not his preferred uniform, not the one he trains in. That one has action figure invisibility, so he ignores what he’s wearing, and the suit sails up over his shoes, gathers thickly in his armpits, and keeps rising north. He looks over at the man sitting across from him. Quiet. Patient. The detective thinks of himself as a people scientist. Les Reardon is a quiet, patient man.

Sitting in the little coatroom of a country church, surrounded by a dragon of wire coat hangers, Les Reardon has been shifting uncomfortably on a small wooden chair for two hours. Expecting to leave any second, he’s kept his coat on. Now that the detective has come in and sat down, Les regards the chain of hangers circling him as a lost opportunity. With his coat off he might have appeared cooperative, casual, at home in the investigation. Les puts his heavily padded elbows on his knees and twirls his cap in his hands. He feels restless. He wants to say something.

The detective continues writing in a folder. He’ll do this for five minutes. Testing his theory. Mr. Reardon is a quiet, patient man. Mr. Reardon works with someone else’s cows and horses. He’s a drama teacher. The detective likes men with decent effeminate professions. He looks up at Les to assess the femaleness of the man, to determine whether to contest it or flirt with him. The detective notices that his own handwriting is pioneering the interview, the dots are pecking impatiently on the outskirts of the “i”s, and a brusque circle around the date misses something crucial. The detective introduces himself.

“Mr. Reardon, I’m detective Peterson. How are you? I appreciate you co-operating.”

The detective attempts to untuck his sleeves at the elbow, but can’t.

“I guess what I need to hear from you is exactly what happened out there.”

Les tells his story. He remembers it as a western, a shootout, but he tells it as if he were a decent man, protecting his property. As he tells the story, “I found a wounded deer in the garage last year, so I have posted the property…” in Les’s head, or rather his imagination, a crazy bulb swings at the end of a cord, and the drama teacher stands in its green light, staring down the sights of a weapon. His grin hangs off the side of his face, a stirrup lost across the ankle of a boot. When he’s finished, the detective gauges the effect of the murder scene on Les. A drama coach, or whatever he is, he’s not so decent. He’s acting.

Let’s see a show.

“Awright, I have a dead man, and I have a man here, sitting across from me, who I found at the scene. You chased the victim into the dense brush, swinging his rifle at your side, and all of a sudden it’s a homicide scene. Now, what do I say? What do I do with your connection here?”

Les straightens the label on the inside of his cap. It curls back against his baby finger, a tighter furl for having been unwound.

“Uh. Detective, I didn’t shoot him. He wasn’t shot. He was… uh… he was…”

“Yeah, yeah, we don’t know what he was yet. Was there anybody else with you?”

“With me? No. Not with me. I didn’t see anybody else.”

“You live alone Mr. Reardon?”

“Yep.”

“Ever married?”

“Well, not quite.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I lived with a woman for four years.”

“Here in Pontypool?”

“No. In Toronto. In Parkdale.”

“Any children?”

“Yeah, uh… one.”

“How old?”

“One month.”

“Really. Daughter?”

“Son.”

“Awright, Mr. Reardon, we’re going to be in touch with you. So, make sure you stay available. If you should happen to remember anything, anything at all, call me at this number.”

The detective gives Les his card and leaves the coatroom door open as he goes. He turns down a hallway that he’s sure Les will not take when he leaves. Peterson leans his thighs against a radiator that runs the length of a wall underneath a basement window. He looks up at the parking lot that spreads out from his chin. A lone vehicle sits in the southwest corner. The truck is Les Reardon, remote, beige, built for leaving in. Closer to the detective is a pyramid of ice, jaundiced and sore with crystal pellets. This is the son. The detective looks for the baby’s mother. The small parking lot is bordered by a winter-toughened hedge. In its chipped line are rocks of ice. No mother. Beyond, the highway. Car-free. Further, the heavy trees and, not visible from this little window, a frozen river that has a crazy, pink spot in its eye. No mother. A month old. Jesus, what happened there?