Entre Nous

ENTRE NOUS

Everyone remembers that night Lester LeClair slid into the icy lot, motor still running, snowsuit half-zipped, slurring “somebody just fired both barrels at my Arctic Cat! While I was still on it!” Most didn’t believe him. Les is a less than honest man and usually liquored up. But the buckshot nicks on the back of his helmet backed up his story.

We all passed it around the bar, into the dining room, even to us in the kitchen — some noting how lucky he was, what a narrow miss it had been. Others whispering “should have aimed lower.” Then came the questions: “Ou?” “Where were you?” “Who coulda done it?” “What was you doing on le lac so late?” A few ladies scolded in Canuck French, warning how thin the ice was already in March, all happily agreeing “we’ll have an early Thaw, eh?”

Les held court and a bottomless beer mug thanks to all the Molsons his buddies kept buying. Suspicions brewed up too. Old-timers who knew him better worried he’d been out by his truck, maybe trying to cheat, chopping chunks of ice around his Chevy so it’d fall in sooner. Others bet he’d loaded it with cinder blocks. No one bought his dodging bullets bullshit.

This was HIS big year, after all. Lester’s turn to drive his beat-up old pickup about a mile out on Lac SansFond and just. leave. it. Til it falls through and he collects half the winnings. That’s our “Thaw.” Like it says on a money jar by the bar: “Oddest Tradition You Never Saw.” Every New Year’s eve, there’s a private party at the Outside Inn — locals only. Where everyone who shows up has to give up their keys. Not to keep anyone safe from driving drunk. (No one cares here.) And not some kink where couples swap partners (although that does happen).

It’s because one lucky local will get their name picked out of a tuque — to choose ANY one of those keys and drive off. Onto the lake. Where it will sit until Spring. Most pick their own vehicle, usually a junker they just want to ditch. So for their sacrifice, they automatically earn half the pot. Quite a fine down payment on a new purchase.

But that holiday spirit becomes spite when someone takes another person’s keys on purpose. The year Bill LaValley’s name got picked, he chose his brother-in-law’s late model Toyota because “it ain’t American.” Last year, Eunice Glaude came in a like-new Camaro, paid for with alimony from her ex. Who was also there. And who, of course, won that night, ruining all of 1975 for her.

And so, the Thaw begins. Folks wager when it’ll fall through, $50 bucks a bet. Pick the right date, half that jar is yours! You can see every truck’s slow death from the dock out back, often just a snowdrift, surviving blizzards, warm spells, tires sinking lower. Until its final gasp, plunging deep into the gaping dark of Lac SansFond, deeper than any in the Adirondacks, earning its name, “Lake Without Bottom.” In a backwater town without a concience.

That night went on well past last call, after we closed the kitchen, after folks stumbled to their F-150s laughing at Lester’s snowmobile still sputtering under a blood worm moon. It must have drained to fumes or someone killed the switch, because by dawn there was just silent white — shrouded over his now-dead sled, across our barely froze-over lake, a fresh dusting covering every track to Lester’s truck out on the ice. Which was gone now. Les was no more.

Funny thing is, the Outside Inn doesn’t welcome outsiders. Even though there used to be a sign out front saying “Guest Rooms To Rent.” Russ, who runs the place, took it down last Halloween after trick-or-treaters rearranged the letters to say “Monstrous.” Year before, it said “Tormentors.” Now rooms are for locals only — like Les, to sleep it off. Or to sleep with someone’s wife. Everyone knows what goes on up there, yet most play dumb. Some don’t have to play that hard.

Second floor is for welfare rummies, full-time residents with not much time left, living out their last call. If you call that living. Every month they fork over their whole check to Russ for a room and single bed, breakfast OR lunch (pick one). Plus free beer just before closing time. Russ keeps the only “suite” for mom, Maggie and me. A big room on the 3rd floor with two beds and half bath. It’s way down a hall from the showers, far enough to barely hear overnighters wail through paper-thin walls. Creaky floorboards warn if someone stumbles our way. Sometimes guys with beer-courage feel encouraged to “go upstairs and jump for Joy.” (The name mom goes by now.) No one tries twice. Our momma-bear got a gun to go with that bearskin rug in our room.

Which is how this place got its unofficial motto: “Git Out & Stay Out.” For real outdoorsmen (and women who want to shoot ‘em). Every wall is a slaughter house of trophy trout on plaques, mounted deer heads, moulting stuffed owls and antler coat hangers threatening anyone wobbling by. Did I mention the dead bears in every bedroom? Regulars here aren’t nearly as lively. Same old beer-soaked bastards telling stale fish tales. Winos and their factory girlfriends. Prison guards off second shift, some getting primed for their next. And big deaf André, who’s always here, who speaks no English. Loudly. They say you can hear Andy’s order from the border 8 miles away.

We don’t stay there year-round, though. Just when we’re too cold at our camp. That’s on the far side of SansFond — “private & pretty, like me!” mom says — so we named it “Châteu Joyeux.” House of Joy. But it’s really just a rusted yellow school bus repainted with rainbows, peace signs on every window, and hippie bead curtains. (Mom went to Woodstock and never left, we tease.) She even calls our back-door emergency exit “Keep on Trucking.” Which we’ve had to use. Twice. Another reason to stay at the Inn.

Before our father disappeared, we had a cabin on that lot. I was 10 then. Maggie just 13, full of teenage hate. Especially for Dad. Story is, there was a huge fight between all three of them. All about Mags. Sex stuff I didn’t understand. Us guys were supposed to go moonlight fishing later, a man-only thing, hole-hopping together, grown-ups warmed with shots at each ice shack. But we never went. Dad was fierce that night. Like a trapped feral boar, thrashing the whole house before leaving for good. With no good-byes and bad intentions.

Our cabin burned down after midnight. We barely got out.

Since then, “we’re all Inn” every winter. Which can get really long up here, from October to April. Russ hired Mom as head cook (actually the only cook), with us kids helping out washing dishes and waiting tables. But I won’t do maid service. Can’t stand those one-night-stander slobs. Maggie, who’s now 18, gets that morning-after mess. My worst job is cleaning out welfare rooms when an old guy passses on. Smells like desperation waiting to die. Still, they’re kinda like in-house neighbors. We get to know them a bit and hear their stories. How they always talk about the past. Or pains and poop. Then one morning, they leave. Usually in their sleep. By the time Russ puts me on clean-up duty, there’s no body. They’ve become nobodies. Except for the checks that keep coming in their name. They get cashed and shared by all.

So people come and go on Lac SansFond. June brings swarms of blackflies, and Montreal families summering at lake houses as large as their sense of entitlement. When the rainbows are biting, it spawns boatloads of bad fisherman from downstate, mostly to drown their own live bait. Every fall, we’re lousy with leaf-peepers nosing around behind binoculars and cameras. One year, divers came, chasing our legend of sunken whiskey bottles stashed by bootleggers crossing the border. They were chased away. By a 30-aught-six hunting rifle aimed at their outboard.

Then they’re all gone with first snow. Before our old logging roads into town start icing up. Before Ski-Doos outnumber Broncos on our streets, and drivers bring their car batteries inside to keep from freezing. All winter long in the North Country’s most forgotten mountain valley, we’re isolated by weather and by choice. Keeping watch. Keeping others out.

There’s a reason we our say our Thaw is a tradition “you never saw.” No outsider ever has. It’s “Entre Nous!” André shouts. Just Between Us. (Which is ironic as he says so loud enough for all to hear. On all three floors.) Not that it matters; everyone local is in on it too. Until they decide they aren’t. Then, “C’est Fini Entre Nous.” It’s finished between us.

Imagine learning that at 13. When it’s decided you’re old enough to know. To understand OUR facts of life involve the threat of death. Especially to those we distrust. I was tormented by our traditions. How we’d voluntarily pollute our own lake and fresh drinking water every year for generations! How it felt like Russ was actually running a low-rent brothel. Wth a side order of insurance fraud. It was ME who vandalized those signs out front, sure something “monstrous” was happening here. Me, sending a call for help to no one listening. I learned our community had an ice-cold heart. It hardened me.

Then Dad showed up. Five years after the fire. Someone saw him out on the hardwater, ducking into this year’s Thaw car to get warm from lake winds. Then trudging to the far side of SansFond toward our empty camp. We’d always suspected it was him who creeped our bus those two times, and probably more we never knew. But now I was hopeful. My father was alive.

Over time, we’d started to believe the fire wasn’t his fault at all. Maybe mine. Had I overloaded our woodstove before bed, distracted by their big fight? Did stress make me less aware of all that smoke? I was “man of the house” that night and failed the job. Dad would have saved it..

Big Deaf Andrè knew I wanted to go out there without anyone knowing. Without upsetting Mom or my sister. By now, I’d heard rumors of her rape but Mags said nothing. I wanted to believe the black eyes Mom bore in the past were from sleepless nights. When folks said he was locked up in Dannemora — or “se cacher” — hiding out in Quebec, it gave me comfort we’d see him again. “Si tu dèsire,” said Andre. Yes, I desired a reunion. “Tant pis pour toi,” he replied. Too bad for me?”.

It wasn’t that bad. We did meet. First, back at our bus, where I suspected he was camping out. Then at the few ice shacks still standing, cautious fishermen already packing it in for the season. Few dared go out that far now, the surface ice slushing up. And never on a night like this one with a new moon hiding all as well.

We decided the best landmark on our dark lake was Jan Revelle’s orange Chevy Vega — this year’s Thaw donation. And if ever a car needed to die in 1976, that was the one. Sheltered inside from past-midnight chills, with a half-drunk quart of Jack I stole from the bar, we talked. Of missed pasts. Of missing each other. I told him how I hated here, our gruesome secrets, wanting to go with him. He winked, claiming that’s why he came back. To make things right. “What this town does is wrong.”

It was time to tell all, he vowed. About the Inn. Who’s in on it. What happens if you break tradition. Now an outcast, Dad was back for revenge — ready to contact state troopers, to revel when Russ gets arrested, and at last reveal our unwritten list of missing persons. He apologized for being gone. Sort of half-admitted hurting Mom and Mags. “They ought to be over that by now, for chrissake. You’re all coming with me now.” Words spilled. Tears too. Ice broke between us. Then I broke his skull open with an empty bottle of Old #7.

Turns out, the next morning was Thaw Day. Total tally in the bar jar, just over ten grand. Our frozen world was warming now, my own bitter heart thawing about our customs. Protecting family and our way of life now sears me with a sense of purpose.

By sun up, we all woke to nothing left across Lac SansFond but pockets of ice-melt where that ugly Chevrolet had been. Which sank sooner than expected with an extra 200 pounds in the trunk.