Blackstrap Hawco (33 page)

he rose, his feet turning to run for home, seeing the calf stood in the distance, a smaller animal, the size of a little horse, a pony, his body stopping just like that, knowing in newer silence, waiting for the stillness to give up,

but the stillness did not, it kept them locked together in fright, in comparison, two same-sized creatures magnetized by the woods,

both heartbeats pumping faster than was meant,

it was blackstrap who finally shifted, reaching for a shell from his pocket, and the calf turned in automatic fright to crash deeper into the wilderness, smashing into trees and stunning itself, motionless on its hooves, facing away,

blackstrap tossed the empty shell out, slid the new one in, snapped shut the shotgun, and took steady aim, blasting the calf over,

there, ahead of where the calf had fallen, an escape path into the green, the kicking of its hooves on a sideways angle, but no movement down that path where it might have never been seen again,

 

jacob remembered helping his uncle ace spread the black nets over the grass, uncle ace, working silently with the concentration of a man seemingly slowed by paralysis, would mend nets further down by the inlet where the boats were tied up, a different location from where jacob now threaded the line, piecing the torn net back together, he called over to charlie coffin, a comment about uncle ace and what the oldtimer would think of the whole scene now, if he were still living,

‘naw bloody much,' charlie coffin called back, sitting on a rock, with hands braced on knees, puffing out his cheeks and smoking a home-rolled cigarette, he lifted his workgreen cap and scratched at his generously bald spot, then tugged it back on, frowning and solidly tilting his head to punctuate the point, his thoughts on his old friend, ace, how they used to play together as boys, high up on the headland, into the sky, overlooking the sea, the green pastures and the pocket of shacks, a million years ago, still a young man in a wrinkled skin suit, living not so much for now, but for then and the utter waste of it,

‘naw bloody much's right,' jacob agreed with a solid nod and a laugh, threading the line, mending the torn net that kept him from going out in the boat,

‘you 'ear from junior da week,' asked charlie, picking a ladybug from his green pants and letting it walk over his palm and the back of his hand to spread its luck,

‘da missus got a letter, yeah,'

‘dey're clos'n down da mines over on da isle,' jacob breathed in, ‘yeah,' pulled a length of thread through the hole,

‘won't be long 'fore da whole christly mess be closed up, mark me words,' jacob muttering, ‘all shagged up,' he sensed a flash in the sky, drew his eyes to the heavens and heard the cry that pained him, as if stitches had been torn from a gut wound, he checked charlie coffin, but his friend's eyes were contemplating the ground, seeming not to have heard a sound, he stared toward bell isle, studying the water, imagining the mines three miles out under conception bay, junior down there digging beneath land and water, quickly looking to his right, up the long sloping pasture, he saw emily in the front yard, shading her eyes with one hand while she stared toward the sky, jacob's white sunday shirt hung damply from her hand, her pregnant belly not showing yet, she had been putting out the wash and something had drawn her from the back, led her toward the front of the house, standing before one of the tall front windows, a white cross dividing the four panes, jacob felt the gape of distance turn to a feeling of unbearable closeness,

‘you hear dat,' jacob asked, almost with fright, casting a look toward the rocky headland covered in clots of grass, stunted spruce and narrow loose dirt paths, the headland lifting before him, blocking a full view of bell isle, as though the rumble had come from the mass of rock,

‘'ear wha',' asked charlie coffin, jacob stood from where he was knelt at work, his knees aching, his fingers gone stone cold, something opening up in him, a dark boundless rushing, leaving him unburdened, he tossed the net from his fingers, striding up the bank, toward his wife who – without thought or explanation – handed jacob his sunday shirt and turned, stumbling toward the front door, the door they never entered in avoidance of bad
luck, stricken, she tripped in over the threshold, her hands braced in the door frame to steady herself,

III

when junior was tom, before he was dead

a faint lopping of water against the steel hull, the hum of the engine, the ocean dark and blue, and gulls following in the ferry's wake, hanging in the pale worry-free sky,

junior had climbed up one of the steel ladders, escaping the exhaust stink from the parked, idling cars to stand on a white metal ledge with the sea air on his face and in his hair, elbows on the railing, watching back at the reddish cliffs of bell isle, their rocky, jagged height shadowed ominous, once named wabana, the abnaki indian name for ‘place where the sun first shines,' junior remembered the canadian, norman park, telling him that, never had he heard it before, he tossed out pieces of bread from his sandwich, an excursion lunch packed by missus neary, the gulls diving for the offerings, plucking the crusts from the water and hanging off to the side, waiting for further movement from him, norman park gone, this same deck, two weeks ago, this same railing where shab reardon broke leo jackman's arm, snapped it over the rail, then tossed leo jackman overboard, leo fooling around with shab's wife, gertie, everyone, in fact, shagging around with her, the orange life preserver flung to leo, junior had done that with shab standing right beside him, shab not minding, he just wanted leo hurt, not dead,

there was a lull as the boat cut its engine, coasted in a soundless way that pleased junior, he held his breath, until the steel jarred against the rubber tires secured to the dock, nudging its way in, lines tossed out, he remembered his father and blackstrap, fishing, coming ashore, junior waiting on the wharf, to hear what they would tell him about being on the water, always a humorous story of triumph or near tragedy, told with serious intakes of breath, his father, the instigator, blackstrap often with a bit of a cocky smile, now, with guilt at their memory and at the
thought of where he was venturing, men after all, his father and his brother, men, unlike him, the reason and the need, junior waited for the steel ramp to be lowered, the cars directed out into portugal cove, a friendly toot from an occasional horn, he waved but would not accept the rides other workers offered him into st. john's, he walked past the cars, wanting no one to know where he was staying, and headed for a taxi, climbing in, he said: the holiday inn, the cabbie clicked over the meter arm and the ticking ensued, that frequently attracted junior's attention, as if he might not have enough money to pay, even though his pocket was filled with fifty-dollar bills, always a fear of some sort, of never measuring up, passing between the towering bookends of rock blasted open to make way for the road, junior observed the water that cascaded down the rock at his right, running off and under the road, everything downhill, finally, everything coursing back, to spill into the sea, life like that, but maybe not his, spilling back to nothing, now clear of the rock, away from the sea, he took in the old, square houses with their fenced yards and small barns, the road winding up and away for several miles, then more water, the flat expanse of windsor lake, and the forested hills beyond its shores, soon a sign for the airport that stirred in him a longing for permanent departure, beyond that, farmland, then more houses, down the incline of a steep road where they stopped at traffic lights, beyond and to their left, the hotel, the beginning of the city, pulling up to the enclosed entranceway, the cabbie flicked off the meter arm, leaned slightly to the side and matter-of-factly announced the price, junior paid and climbed out, small suitcase in hand, one of his mother's suitcases, solidly built with solid brass clasps, it had belonged to his mother's mother, amanda, dead from tb, a woman who wanted better for his mother, that was often the argument, british, refined, his father despised the woman, suitcase in hand, he stepped along the enclosed concrete passageway with its wide red carpet and in through the double doors, he set his suitcase on the floor, uncertain if he should interrupt the desk clerk who was involved in writing something down, not noticing junior, not paying attention, until junior coughed and the clerk raised his finger, held the finger in the air while he finished his work, moments later, the clerk looked up, offering a closed-lip smile, ‘yes?'

‘i'd like a room, please?' junior asked, conscious of his age, his youth, wondering if he required some sort of identification, as he sometimes did when visiting the bars downtown, he had been in here before with his father and mother, while his mother shopped and called on her father in the lunatic asylum, junior's father sitting in a hotel lobby chair, grumbling about money wasted, the clerk lifted a card and placed a pen diagonally across the lines to be filled out, junior wrote what came to mind, had fun with it,

‘will you be paying by credit card,'

‘cash,' junior said,

‘we require one piece of identification,' junior, suddenly troubled, ‘driver's licence okay,' the clerk would see his name, the difference, who he really was,

‘yes,' the clerk said, ‘that will do,' junior placed the licence on the counter, looked toward the glass doors, in case he needed to dash off, the clerk never even checked it,

‘that's fine,' junior waited for further instruction, nothing came, he assumed that was it, a key in his hand, a key on an orange plastic fob, he turned away and stepped across the lobby, through the double doors, into the long dimly lit corridor, junior read the numbers on the doors until he found his room, fit the key into the lock, thought and then felt what a wonderful sense of freedom these places offer, inside, he took a moment to smell the air, then set his bag on the bed and clicked on the television, two beds, he observed, everything clean, thrilled by the prospects of what he would discover here, pulled open the drapes and looked out over the swimming pool and the small pond beyond it, more water, he undressed in front of the tall windows, this bold sense of revelation, regarded his reflection, with thoughts of who might be in the other rooms, the lives, what were they doing, where they had come from, he put his clothes back on, and left his room, making certain he had the key in his pocket before closing the door, he wandered into the lobby, bought a newspaper and sat on one of the couches, read about how the british legislature had urged for mercy killings of babies born deformed and limbless, victims of a drug called
thalidomide taken by their mothers during pregnancy, the queen mother's visit to canada, a photograph, that gloved hand of hers, waving, the preordained curve of her fingers, a meeting of the atlantic premiers, junior looked at the individual photographs, smallwood, the man his father hated, smallwood, robichaud, stanfield and shaw, he read about a bell isle man who had drowned in port arthur, ontario, a name he did not know, and saw that actor billy gray, who portrayed the teenage son on father knows best, received a six-month sentence for possession of marijuana, what would norman park think of that, a laugh and a half, norman, he had norman's address in toronto, maybe that's where junior would go, what would norman think, be happy to see him, be suspicious, standing in a doorway, the two of them facing one another, junior glanced up from his reading to watch the men who passed before him, those who met his eyes did so with the fleeting interest of the business-minded, his presence of no true use to them, he read on about a blast over the nevada desert, an h-bomb type device, in the mightiest blast yet fired in the united states, sent a shower of rock and sand soaring spectacularly thousands of feet over the nevada desert, s
pectacularly
, junior thought, glancing up to see another man pass, a man whose eyes lingered on his, woman's eyes in a man's face, they both knew in an instant, junior read on, a flash brilliantly visible fifty-five miles away at 10.00 p.m.,
brilliantly,
junior thought, licking his lips, and glancing up to see that the man was now seated across from him, he read ‘a wallop equal to 100,000 tons of tnt,' w
allop,
junior smiled to himself, ‘it rose to perhaps 7,000 feet, looking to observers like a giant chrysanthemum bloom,' junior looked up at the man,
bloom,
seeing the man's gentle smile that warmed his lips, so that he rose and followed after the man, down the corridor, the man's room in a different wing, the man unlocking his door, leaving it open, junior checked over his shoulder before stepping in, inside the man's room, the man talked, standing by the window, asked junior his name, where he was from, junior said his name was tom, the man said his name was fred, tom and fred drank beer, the man talked about news, the biggest stories, then became nervous, more confident, less confident, the man named fred moved closer to tom, at first, fred was gentle, calm, smooth hands, but then he kissed roughly, unshaven, it hurt tom's face, his hands grabbed,
pulled too hard, it was fast then, all of it, when it was tom's turn, he gagged, fred moved quicker with his hips, as though fred thought tom might change his mind, as though fred wanted to get it over with, something that had to be done, when the energy had been exasperated, when junior was no longer tom, but himself, he could not help but cry, changed as he was, he could not help it, the tears poured out, why, the man who remained fred held him in his arms, they lay together on one of the man's beds, not the bed the man would be sleeping in, until the man stood and told junior that he was very good, a nice body, young, and junior smiled away the tears, shook his head at his foolishness, and sat up, secretively wiped at his eyes, the man a little older, always older than him, his back against the headboard, admiring the way the man walked about the room, stark naked, smoking a cigarette and talking, at first calmly, then more nervous, junior wishing he had his camera, but the man would never allow a picture, captured like this, the man came back to the bed and stood there, as junior began to feel a little better, telling junior he had an appointment, he was late, he looked at his watch, junior saw the wedding ring that wasn't there before, the man had plans and he was late, fred had plans, and that junior must leave now, must go, must leave now, be gone, out of there, fred even pointed to the door, his voice unrecognizable, junior quickly dressed, thinking, why in this room, why like this, and he left, not another word, back to his room where he picked up his camera, went outside the hotel in the fresh air, he stared back in the direction from where he had come, raised the camera, pressed the shutter, captured the entranceway, waited until the man came out, another picture, the man not even looking at him, in dark sunglasses and into a car, he felt regret, disgust, shame deepening by the moment until there was his father, his brother, his mother, he turned the camera around to face him, shut his eyes tight, opened his mouth wide, and pressed the button,