The Avenger
by Luc Fortuin
When your own life is dominated by the petty grievances you harbour from your past, it is perhaps inevitable that you would surround yourself with people of similar persuasions. This was certainly the case for Brad Bouchard, a denizen of Kernow, Ontario, a personage of no mark whatsoever, until, that is, he devised his cunning plan.
The plan was naturally a matter of pure revenge, although he also counted on some fringe benefits. These included, though were not limited to, a certain, though never actually specified, pecuniary return, and an advanced reputational standing vis-a-vis his closest associates. If he played his cards right, he stood to become a leader among men. Also women, which was definitely a draw.
His strategy was somewhat long in its gestation. Since the advent of this the latest grievance to dominate his every waking moment, he had spent entire nights turning the matter over in his mind, examining it from every possible angle, straining the totality of his nervous system in the effort to identify quite how he might exact retribution. The plan was thus, in his view, the result of meticulous preparation, with all potential eventualities given supposed utmost consideration.
But what, we hear you ask, could so have irked the good – we shall be charitable – Mr Bouchard that set him on the course he now was following? Simply this. Some few days ago, he was driving his truck onto the east-west highway, when another vehicle, identical to his own, though of different manufacture, and distinctly newer and shinier, with considerably more desirable features, abruptly cut in front, causing him to have to brake and swerve. His hand went instinctively to the klaxon, whilst his brain registered a salient fact about the offending Ford.
Just above its license plate was a sticker from an election long past. It referenced the leader of a political party viewed by our protagonist with some disfavour. His own truck sported a decal indicating, rather crudely, in the manner of the carnal act that it seemed to advocate, animosity towards that self-same politician, a sentiment evidently quite widely shared among the inhabitants of Kernow. Only one person in his experience showed any love for this bushwhacker, and that was Michael MacDonald, Brad’s sworn enemy, indeed his alleged nemesis.
Not only was Michael MacDonald a careless, nay, cavalier operator of a motor vehicle, he was also the object of the affections of Shenagh O’Rourke. She, although they had never spoken, except for that one time when she had thanked him for holding the door at the gas station convenience store, and he had stood there open-mouthed, was the object of his. It might have been said, but wasn't, that the three of them formed an impermanent triangle. In any case, toss another grievance onto the pyre.
Worse still, Michael MacDonald was ever cutting a dashing figure, as he stopped at the local supermarket, or the liquor store, or the aforementioned gas station, ever full of smiles, sharing jokes and laughs with excruciating alacrity, sporting the slick uniform of an officer of the Canada Border Services Agency. Such was his profession. He was stationed at the nearby land crossing with the United States.
So, what about the plan? Well, thank you for asking. It was, at the same time, both simple and complicated; Brad would have said complex, had that word ever entered his vocabulary, which it hadn't. He intended to sneak into the CBSA Kernow Port of Entry and purloin whatever valuable customs confiscated items he might find there. He could, he thought, also wreak havoc on any spare uniforms that might be hanging in the staff locker room. That would wipe the smile off of the rugged MacDonald face.
He knew that, self-evidently, his raid would need to take place under cover of darkness, of which, this being the height of summer, there were fewer hours, and those that there were tended not to draw much cross-border traffic. This would be essential in order to distract and occupy Michael MacDonald, and however many others of his colleagues were also, at the time in question, on the night shift.
Brad had cunningly selected July 1st as the target date for his escapade, which, it being Canada Day, would provide alternate occupation for the local police service. But this would also mean in practice that anyone planning a trip across the border to take part in the festivities would already have done so. Here, we arrive at the complicated part of the plan. He would need to engage the assistance of his extensive friend group, all of eight people, all owners of trucks very similar to that operated by Brad. They would provide the required distraction by entering Canada en masse.
Of course – recall please our opening statement – the choreography was not exactly straightforward. Why should they all give up their regular Canada Day activities to take part in a scheme that was not of their own devising, in which they had walk-on roles at best? If they did agree to become active accomplices, what reward or recompense could they expect? But, to his credit, Brad had for once foreseen just this manner of objection. In their shoes, he would have come up with some of his own that would be far from dissimilar, not that this latter thought ever occurred to him.
As to the first issue, as far as he knew, no one had any Canada Day programme in mind. They never did. This would indeed provide one and all with a welcome change from their habitual lethargy. In regards to the second point, this was Brad’s opportunity at revenge, and thus his prerogative to design and shine. There would surely arise further occasions to right the wrongs suffered by other members of the gang, in which he swore he would willingly and wholeheartedly participate. Then, on the third matter, though with considerable reluctance, he pledged to pay for everyone's gas, and to provide pizza and beer on completion.
For clarity's sake, we should admit to having embellished somewhat the terminologies employed by our protagonist. We might also make mention of the fact that not one single collaborator asked why he required retribution on Michael MacDonald, and nor did Brad feel the need to offer any such statement. We could say that this speaks for itself: ça va de soi, as their francophone neighbours would, and did, say.
Thus was the venture set in motion. Brad convened his various – eight, you remember? – confederates to a launch function at Monique’s Diner, close by the on and off ramps to the east-west highway. Half of them departed in one direction, the rest in the other, to enter the USA at border crossings some few kilometres away. This ruse was intended to throw any suspicious parties, just in case there were any, off the scent. He then secreted himself in his trailer, intending to be fully rested prior to the coming nighttime exertions. He may have had a beer or two, or six. We'll let him sleep them off.
Which he did well in time for the main act. With the sun going down, and an estimated thirty minutes till the start of the official Canada Day fireworks display, Brad set off for the border. He did not drive his truck. That would be far too noticeable; it was old, not terribly well maintained, made a fearful noise, and trailed filthy exhaust fumes. This called for a more subtle approach: an electric bike, recently acquired, though not fully paid for. He was approaching the Canadian entry point just in time to see his collaborators begin to fill the lineup in front of the single functioning post.
A second one soon opened up, and half of the trucks peeled off in that direction. Brad could see – he was cunningly equipped with a pair of binoculars – that his buds were not being processed in any way expeditiously. Rather, each and every one was directed to take their vehicle for a more thorough customs inspection. Such staff as there were on the night shift were soon fully engaged in removing boxes from the backs of the trucks and taking them into the building. The drivers/owner-operators were equally directed to the same locale.
This, thought Brad, was not precisely proceeding according to his preordained plan. Actually, it was going better. Soon there would be so much confusion inside the building that no one would remark his own surreptitious intrusion. Even the CCTV would likely miss him, especially since, having first extinguished the cigarette he had been smoking, he had donned a surgical mask, one used previously during the late unlamented pandemic.
And so it proved. All of his confederates were crowded together at one end of the customs hall, surrounded by the uniformed CBSA officers on duty. He meanwhile was able to slither around a couple of bulky pillars, containing the building’s HVAC, plumbing, cabling, and what have you, to a storage facility. Better yet, the door was not locked, as it should have been. A number of boxes, recently discharged from the trucks parked outside, had just been placed there. Things were left as they were pending the outcome of ongoing interrogations.
Brad was about to step through the door, when he heard behind him a burst of uproarious laughter. He froze, guessing – he had ample experience to justify this assumption – that he might himself be the object of the present hilarity, the butt of yet another joke. Fortuitously, this was not the case.
Rather, Michael MacDonald was dangerously close to wetting himself, as he comically called out the litany of fatuous infractions committed by the assembly gathered at the opposite end of the hall. Brad wasn't listening in any way attentively, though he did, he thought, catch some allusion to the pyrotechnical festivities he could hear just getting underway a couple of kilometres away in the city centre. Why was the odious Mick MacD, albeit risibly, berating his buds about that?
Now he did slink into the dark space, within which he had high hopes of locating goods that might prove rewarding to him and whose absence would embarrass his nearby mortal enemy. He still needed to exercise caution, lest he be apprehended in flagrante delicto. He should not, for instance, turn on any of the lights controlled by the three switches he had espied by the door. Instead, he moved deeper into the storage area, where he would be shielded by boxes, when he made use of the flashlight of his cellphone.
Alas, that saying of the great bard, Robert Burns, the one about both mice and men making plans that do not sufficiently attend to all the minute details, rang true also in this instance. That is not to say, in case that's where your mind was wandering, that the mobile phone began to ring. It couldn't. It was out of charge. The resourceful burglar, however, is a person of great resilience, and you'll recall that this one was a smoker. He had merely to reach into his pocket for his beloved Zippo cigarette lighter, and then…
Then there was more than sufficient illumination to allow for a detailed examination of every nook and cranny of the storage room, along with what seemed like the sound of a twenty-one gun salute.
This may, thought Brad Bouchard, as the paramedics loaded him into their ambulance, not have been my finest idea. But, quite severely burned as he was, not to mention the object of considerable ridicule, he had made a significant gain: a modicum of self-awareness.
