The Bucket List

Wool socks… a couple of plaid flannel shirts… jeans… a single burner camp stove… night goggles… hiking boots… legal documents, lots of legal documents. Newspaper articles telling of the undercover sting operation that laundered money for people who brought American dollars back in exchange for prime Canadian hydroponic weed… an old passport… a driver’s license in someone else’s name that I hope he didn’t kill anyone for.

Just kidding, he isn’t like that.

Going through my brother’s belongings is a surreal way to get insight into the last few years of his life. Just a couple of duffle bags is the sum total of what Wiley has to show for his 50 something years.

Our mother in common sits with feet up on the couch nursing a mostly gin, gin and tonic, looking at anything other than what I was pulling out of the non- designer luggage. I plug the Bob Marley CD into her boom box. Don’t worry, Be Happy. It felt like a bad joke. Quiet was better.

A Biography of Che Guevarra… the Indoor Guide to Growing Marijuana… Quantum Physics Explained… How to Beat the Dealer Playing Poker… a textbook for electricians and some info booklets on commercial ventilation. I stack the books beside the three digital cameras that will go to the thrift store. Unwilling to look at what was on the SD cards I toss them in the garbage but on second thought put them aside to thoroughly destroy later, in case there is something incriminating.

Photos spill out of a brown paper lunch bag. Him grinning, holding with two arms a huge salmon, wind in his hair and choppy ocean in the background… him with a gal under a Welcome to Havana sign while leaning on a restored sky blue 1956 Ford holding a bottle of rum like some would hold an Oscar or Stanley Cup… him with another girl drinking Thai beer and chop-sticking noodles into his mouth under a tropical leafy tree.

Nice life. If that sounds jealous, you are correct.

Him, with his beautiful white dog that looked after him for more than a decade. If Casper could talk she would tell you it was she who did the rescuing. It was love at first sight and part of Wiley’s run of good luck.

She didn’t do the wrong thing like with the others who had courted her at the animal control shelter. She didn’t pull like a maniac or bark madly, or jump and hit him in his face with her nose accidentally on purpose. Casper met him eyeball to eyeball, and whispered destiny in his ear..

Casper had been gone a few years. Maybe that explains him losing his priorities and being forced to play a losing hand. It was the cards he dealt himself.

There was the picture of Wiley five years ago with his 50 000$ lottery check, a goofy grin of ironic disbelief on his face; he who had a laundry basket full of rolls of cash. When I was going back to college but needed a computer he shrugged and gestured with his thumb the general direction of his closet to make a bank withdrawal. Unchecked generosity to his sister, pan handlers and when we went out for dinner, waitresses maneuvered to have him seated in their section knowing that his tips exceeded the bill.

Aside from the stuff you find at the bottom of anyone’s junk drawer like batteries, loose coins and a screwdriver there is one of those little black books that fits a shirt pocket perfect. It has curved corners so it won’t catch on anything and an attached elastic that holds it closed. He had gifted me one once; a larger version for writing poetry.

Eureka! A bottle of Estate grown Anejo Tequila. Nothing but the best for Wiley. I glance at my mom who is still nursing her bar gin but lighting a cigarette by the window of her non-smoking senior care apartment. Rebels outnumber the conformists in this gene pool. I leave the bottle out of site in the bag. It is too good to share.

Mom goes to use the bathroom so I remove the cork with the crystal top, give it a little swirl and hold my nose above the bottle. It smells of Mexico and sweet toasted agave. I take a sip big enough for a party of three and tuck the bottle in my oversized purse by the door. I swish the alcohol back and forth over my palate to all the areas that pick up the range of complexity that is a preview to the hot swallow; one sip for the taste and two because I need it. It is silky and more than a little interesting. There is a passing note of vanilla shadowed by a smooth finish. I will be raising a glass to Wiley later. After years of bartending, I know my stuff.

The gin has oiled the mechanism that allows my mom to speak. “I just don’t know how he could do such a thing.” The words come out, but her mouth is so pursed it hardly moves.

Relaxed, even tipsy and certainly more courageous I sit in the old lady pink faux velvet upholstered rocker and release the elastic of the little black book. Pandoras box in book form. Release the Kraken.

“Jail is worse than death for some people. You know your son.”

Her pain is raw but it doesn’t make me want to honey-coat it for her. I bite my tongue to stop from saying something about him being a product of his childhood. I don’t know if that is absolutely true and blaming doesn’t help.

“It’s just so final.” Her voice cracked.

Wiley was her favorite and she was in a weird way proud of him for his complex cross border exploits. If anyone asked, she would explain he was a CEO of his own export business. He was everyone’s favorite. She defiantly flicks her butt into the courtyard three floors down. She downs her last swallow and hurls her ice cubes out the window as well. I would not want to live on the bottom floor below this woman.

Back to my reading.

Page 1. Blank.

I do that too just in case I need to put something really important there later. There isn’t an uncashed lottery ticket with some of his genie luck attached.

Page 2.

Grandma Anne’s Borscht… tomatoes, cream, cabbage, dill, potatoes, beets…

The heirloom recipe for bowlfuls of memories as warm and comforting as the soup itself in his familiar scrawl made me want to weep. Now I miss him and Grandma Anne.

Page 3.

• Casper1!!!

• 1caspeR$$$

• @Casper#doit

Passwords of course.

Page 4.

• “Freedom is the power to choose our own chains” Jean Jacques Rousseau

• May 9th 10AM Vancouver Courthouse shit shit shit ??????

10 days from now

Page 5.

Bucket List, New Year 2017

• to live somewhere warm

• to own a sailboat

• $1 000 000

• to hear the whisper of luck

“hmmm”

Page 6.

An international phone number and in large block letters. CALL ME!

“It’s about time.”

“You made it.” I wanted jump through phone to hug and punch him. I tried for years to not worry about him but sweeeet Jesus he made it hard. Stowing away on a sailboat bound for I don’t actually know where with maybe a million dollars was not a little thing.

“You ok?”

“Everything is good.” The positivity does not sound effortless. “Better than the alternative.”.

Wiley likes to travel but he is wholeheartedly Canadian; salmon fishing, mountains, a swack of snow in winter, clean water. It is a stinging consequence.

“I wish you could visit.”

“Me too.” Neither of us point out the obvious that I would be the easiest route to the law finding him if they want to pursue it. “Thanks for the tequila. Is that a clue?”

He laughs. “Could be, but everyone goes there to hide.”

I have Peter Pan, Robin Hood, drug lord and International Man of Mystery all rolled into one brother. Maybe a little Captain Jack Sparrow, as well.

We are entering into a phase when I will never know his whereabouts, if he is dead or alive, sick or well. I hate it. I want to cry so bad that the top half of my face hurts with pressure.

“Hey, I went to the races before I left. Had a tip on a longshot filly named Just My Luck. She came from way off the pace and won it in a photo finish. 20 to 1. I dropped a grand on her. The proceeds are in my sock in the duffel bag. Going away present for you.”

“Jesus. Are you fixing races now?”

“Nope, just hearing the whisper of luck. And tell mom I love her.”