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this metal chute and the diseased, syringomyelic swelling that rogue chromosomes caused in his father’s spinal cord. Here in the bright spring air, curved metal all around him, Andrew is now the clambering disease, the neurological saboteur, the ugly face of fate. Two-thirds up, he pauses on the ladder in a spot comparable to the fourteen-inch-long surgical scar that transected his father’s back. Simultaneously, he can see the struts and beams of the tower and the distant trees of Nova Scotia, or maybe even New Brunswick, and also that unforgettable scar on a now dead body, that pale record of decades-old neurological surgery. He had looked at the scar thousands of times before he learned that the pre-programmed swelling of Stan’s spinal cord could have ruined him in other ways, depending on its location along the height of his spinal cord. A stop on this rung of the ladder took most of Stan’s sense of touch, his balance and half the mobility of his arms and legs. A swelling lower down could have taken the legs completely, could have folded Stan into a stained wheelchair. Andrew resumes his climb, ascending the rungs and vertebrae of hearing and sight. Stop here and I’ll freeze you blind. Stop here and I’ll ’tard your brain.
    Preoccupied, he’s almost surprised to reach the top of the ladder so quickly, to perch beneath the bulbous skull of the tower’s observation booth. Bringing up his knees and leaning into the ladder’s ribbedback, he’s able to wedge himself into a sitting position. A few bolt-heads press uncomfortably into his back, but the legs take the weight without complaint; these thighs know a burn. A breeze washes over him. The dense green forest flows ceaselessly below. Cool, piny air wipes the sweat from his face and limbs. Up here, sunshine brightens the air without cooking it. Weather and light are perfect for his first, perhaps his only, view from a fire tower. A locked fire tower.
    The trap door above him rises barely half an inch before snagging on a bolt or hasp snug on the other side. Stupidly, he tries pressing harder with one hand. It’s obvious the incomplete base of the ladder and this hidden lock are designed precisely to keep people like him out, but how many people willing to climb one hundred metres to see trees really need to be kept out? Indignantly, he steps down a rung, scrunches his neck to get his helmet under the door, then lifts with both legs. Although the wooden door strains around the central lock, it remains steadfast.
    That the caged ladder is a straight tube of such uninterrupted length he could now become his own lethal injection shooting down its syringe should be discouragement enough against an inverted kick. Hands locked on a rung, he draws his knees up to his chest and then rolls his head and shoulders back until he is hanging upside down. Now that he can stare up at his clenched hands and, beyond them, his feet resting against the door, he has several competing thoughts. One, this might just work. Your legs are strong. You’ll feel it if you can’t hold the strength of the push. Two, this is the second dumbest thing you have ever done. Three, if you get yourself killed, you’ll definitely never see Betty again, let alone reconcile or get her pants off or learn anything. Four, this inverted kick is more than the upper- and lower-body contest you discovered on a mountain bike with Mark.
    With this tour, he has biked into his fourth distinct mode as a cyclist, progressing from the independent travel of childhood to the high-adrenalin, whole-body workout of mountain biking to the leg and lung work of road riding and here to the least popular: touring. Now he is both road rider and pack horse.
    On narrow mountain bike trails in Kingston, he had learned to dip his chest and steer with his oarsman’s abs. His shoulders and arms shoved down against the force of calves and thighs. Pinballing downa switchback hill,