"Jim! We've got to go out to Roger's place and talk to Sally about those damn retraining grants. We were promised they were pure grants, not taxable, and now they're trying to gouge over five grand from us!"

Tom burst through my front door, wraught over the twenty-three thousand dollar "grant" which our Provincial government, apparently, now deems taxable income. When our company went bankrupt, along with many other forestry-related companies, the government funded "tax-free" retraining programs. Roger took a course in heavy equipment operation and his ferocious wife Sally directed so many people to this program that eventually the company put her on commission - something like 10% for each new recruit. She made more money than Roger ever had. She recruited, did all the paperwork, booked flights to the northern training centre, held congratulatory homecoming parties after each two month session in the gorgeous new house Roger and she had built three, four years earlier in better times.

Tom and I drive out to Roger's place a few miles out of town, twoish yesterday afternoon. This place is gorgeous; big, cathedral-like house resplendent with arched and pointed windows lacking only stained-glass Biblical images, a few acres populated with ponys and goats and a converted truck camper housing a brood of chickens, half a dozen dogs ranging from miniature Dachshunds to something resembling a big firehouse dog. We roam his property, beer and moonshine in hand, inspect changes, piss in corners, gather around the fire-barrel burning the maple wood I need for my fish smoker.

Roger has beer in his downstairs "shop" fridge. He also has a forty pounder of something he cites as "rye whiskey", but it is actually flavoured moonshine concoted by a neighbour. Inventive, these rurals.

The shop is Roger's room. The rest of the downstairs is occupied by his mother, from whom he was estranged for years, so it was no little surprise when he agreed to her moving in. She's a crazy woman. When her husband, Roger's Quebecois father, was dying of pulmanory disease from years in mines, he told Roger he wanted a Catholic funeral. The crazy woman tried to overide him, insisting on some kind of evangelical ceremony, but Roger trumped her, arranged a Catholic ceremony. I attended. It was moving, all that ambient light emanating from arched and pointed stained-glass windows. The crazy mother promptly donated much of her inherited money to TV evangalists. Go figger.

Roger had double doors built into his downstairs shop entrance. Too many years of wrestling big furniture and appliances through single doors. If I ever build another house, I guarantee it will have double doors everywhere. First priority, next to no fucking trees pissing down leaves and needles all over the place, blocking the sun.

"Easy on that stuff", I advise Tom. "You're driving." I'm less easy on that stuff, being only a passenger along for the ride.

Half the unfastened double door crashes open, a big thunk. These damned horses are supposedly Shetland Ponies, but the monster standing in the doorway is near five feet at the shoulder, my height at head, with hair-overgrown hooves the size of snowshoes and a mane flowing to haunches. Looks like a Budweiser Clydesdale to me, gives a little whinny. Roger tosses it an apple, offers it a beer. The horse likes both, backs carefully out of the room, ponderously turns and resumes negotiations with Minnie the evil black goat.

The retraining program had nothing to do with me, nor the gouging taxation, but Tom wanted company, reinforcement, I guess. Sally is intimidating. She once emptied bars by her mere presence, driving into the parking lot in that old red minivan looking for Roger. Big, powerful men would flee out side-doors, into men's washrooms, hide under tables, seeking refuge from this five-foot woman.

We eventually got what we came for, left. Tom said "We've got to stop at the Quarterway, tell Mike the news." Mike wasn't there, so we had a few quaffs. About 10ish, we left. "You're too pissed to drive" I informed Tom. "Nah. It's just around the corner. What could go wrong?" We pulled out from the parking spot and as we were about to enter the busy road, Tom said "Ohh, maybe you were right. I don't think I can drive. Let's call a taxi"

He backed, reparked, but not before a passing cop noticed him. She came into the bar, grabbed him by an arm, she all of five and a half feisty feet, he six feet and 230 compliant pounds. I followed them outside, watched the interaction leaning against his fancy new truck, some kind of bastardization of SUV and pickup.

She smiled, he smiled, his big laugh ringing the lot, her downcast head and uplifted eyes signalling something more than the ticket she continued to write rather than the impaired driving (DUI) charge which would have been appropriate.

"I'm issuing you a 24 hour roadside suspension and impounding your vehicle, as mandated by law. Pick it up tomorrow at the impound (whisper whisper). It'll set you back about $150."

I think Tom got a date with her. She was a lovely mid-thirtyish woman, he a single fortyish man.

Sometimes its good to revisit one's errant past and not repeat egregious, potentially deadly decisions.