Blackstrap Hawco (37 page)

‘Nothing.'

‘An operation. Isn't that correct?'

Karen's face reddens. ‘Turn it off, Glenn.'

‘You're not afraid of seeing yourself?'

‘No.'

‘What are you afraid of then?'

‘Nothing.' Her image shaky in the viewfinder. ‘Just stop.'

‘What are you here for?'

‘Breast reduction, okay? Now, turn it off. That's it.'

Glenn stepping nearer the bed, aiming the camera lower. A view of rumpled fabric with hidden weight behind it.

Karen turns her face away so she will not be captured.

‘You don't want to interfere with art, do you?'

‘Glenn, that's enough now.'

‘Come on, smile.'

She snorts. Turns her face halfway back. Shows her teeth. ‘Okay, I smiled. Turn it off.'

Glenn clicks the video camera off. He sits on the edge of the bed. His eyes on the camera casing in his lap, wondering.

‘What's the matter?' he asks, raising his eyes. ‘Don't you want this documented?'

‘Why would I want that?'

‘So you can see the difference,' his voice quiet, reasonable, convincing. ‘Come on, Karen.' His eyes steadily on her eyes. ‘It's important to me.'

‘I don't want to be in one of your documentaries.'

‘Why not?'

‘I just don't.'

‘Just a few more shots, okay?' He makes to rise, but holds himself. Her permission required. ‘Please?'

Karen watches the little boy she grew up with. His face. Please.

‘I need your help with this.' Standing. Smiling. Everything okay.

‘Alright?' Tentatively, he raises the camera. ‘Ready.'

‘Just a second, that's it.' She looks toward the door. Reaches down and lifts the blanket up to her throat.

The camera to Glenn's eye. The flush in his cheeks. ‘What are you having done?'

‘Breast reduction,' said matter-of-factly. A patient in a hospital bed.

‘Why is that?'

‘Why do you think?'

‘I'm not certain. Tell me in your own words, please.'

‘They're too big.' Her cheeks a deep pink. Light red toward the centre like Glenn's.

Glenn tightens on that. The hum of the zoom. Holds on the colour. The complexion changing. Deepening.

‘It's hard to tell.' His hand comes forward into the picture. The shot widening. His hand exposed, out from behind the lens. Pulling the sheet down. The blue hospital gown, the neck hole loose. He grips the fabric edge, carefully pulls, coaxing. ‘Stand up. Come on.'

Karen sighs, ‘Glenn, I don't want to do any more.' A deep breath. Frustrated, her eyes glazing over. ‘I just don't want to, okay?'

‘Come on, Karen. Now.' His voice changing, telling her. Do what you are told. Another voice, a hurried whisper, ‘Come on. There's not much time.'

She watches the lens.

Glenn's face hidden. His hair. His chin. The other features unknown. Unimaginable.

Sighing again, she slips her legs over the edge of the mattress. Stands in her bare feet. The hospital gown plain and hanging.

Glenn backs up.

Karen standing there. Uncertain. She brushes back her black bangs with her chubby fingers. Her toes on the cool tile. Nothing underneath the gown. Her nipples stiffening to be seen like this. The camera lens for so many.

‘Turn sideways.'

Karen shifts, her eyes fixed on the window. A view of hills and small houses. This far away, there is no movement. She thinks they all might be empty.

‘We need to see why,' he says.

She checks the lens. Resigned now. Eyes saddened without challenge. ‘Why what?' But she knows.

He zooms in on her face. On her lips. Parting. Unsteadily. The tremble. A breath.

She says: ‘Why what?' Her teeth. Her tongue. The pink inside of her mouth.

He says: ‘Why you're getting it done.'

‘I told you why.' Words without a face.

‘Show us.'

The camera pulls back. The hum of the zoom.

Karen fully there again.

She does not know what to do with her hands. She raises them. Shapes them over her breasts. To show or protect.

‘We can't see.'

‘What then? What should I do?'

‘You know.' His voice in the dark. Remembered. A smaller voice.

‘Take it off?' Her voice in the dark. Remembered. A smaller voice with questions.

‘Yes.'

‘Is that what you want?'

‘Yes.'

A pause.

The lens aimed down, then slowly up.

‘Will you leave me alone then?'

‘Yes.'

Snorting, she gives a shake of her head. Her lower jaw pushed slightly forward. She watches toward the window. Those little houses. Forgotten people in them. She will not look at him. Will not see. The blue sky above the hills. The roofs of those houses all black.

‘Just for a second,' he says. ‘That's all.'

She reaches back and waits, then pulls the string. Moves the gown from her freckled shoulders. Holds the material tight.

‘Let it drop.'

Still holding the material. ‘I don't want this on TV.' Her serious face toward the lens. ‘I mean it, Glenn.'

‘Okay, no TV.'

She lets go of the gown. Her body naked. Remaining perfectly still. Gooseflesh prickling.

‘Okay,' he says again. Breathing. Focusing. Zooming.

‘Are you done?'

‘Turn around.' A quick breath out that sounds like a word. ‘Now.'

The hum of the zoom.

She turns. Body swaying to each slight movement.

‘Stay like that. Stay.'

She stays.

‘Sideways now.'

She turns.

‘Stay.'

She stays.

‘Lean on the bed. On your hands.'

She does as told, right away to get it done. Her face toward the white metal headboard. Her breasts hanging. Her bum stuck out.

The camera shifts in behind.

The hum of the zoom.

‘Okay?' her voice shaky. Not looking back. Not knowing. Not allowed.

‘Not yet.'

‘What're you going to do now?'

A hand entering the picture. Touching there. The curl of a finger stroking the divide. A man's low, appreciative moan.

She stands and faces him. ‘Alright?' Her uncertain reflection in the lens.

‘No.'

‘Yes. You've seen enough.'

His breathing.

Her reflection. Liking her reflection. Far enough away. Using it for now. The reflection's hands over her breasts to hide them. Raising them higher. The way they should be. Smaller. She sees them that way.

‘Take your hands away.'

She sees herself doing it.
Your
hands, he said. Not
her
hands. Breasts
thickly sagging. The unevenness of wide nipples shrinking. The plumpness of belly. The wideness of hips. The tangle of pubis. Thinking of it. The feel of air on skin. Every inch of it. Wet in an instant.

‘That's enough now.' But her voice meaning not to. She slips one bare sole a little over. The air touching her better.

‘No, more, like before.'

She backs away from her reflection. From before and now. Sits on the edge of the bed. Waits. Hands tucked between her knees. An examination is what it's like. Documentation. Like when the doctor took pictures after drawing on her breasts. Her shoulders slouched. ‘Shoulders back,' the doctor had said. Other photos of breasts on his wall. Big ones made smaller. Before and after. Her head swimming. She lies down on the bed. Flat. Rigid. But more comfortable. Wants to be told. Wants to be confined. Choiceless. She covers herself with the white hospital sheet. Get it over with. She checks toward the door. It is locked. A strong hospital lock. That feels better than just a knob to turn. They will not be watched.

A whisper: ‘Someone might come.'

‘No,' he says, right away. ‘They're all sleeping.' He pulls the drapes. Shuts off the light.

‘Are you sure?' Her dim, faraway eyes in the lens. Her whole body fitting in that compact space. Barely seen. The light strained through the curtain.

‘Yes.'

‘I don't want to get caught.'

‘You won't. You know what you like to do. Remember? Show everyone.'

She bends her legs. Her knees rising. Her soles flat on the bed. The hospital sheet slides away. Her knees pressed tight together.

‘Show me, Karen.'

Edgily, bit by bit, she opens her legs. ‘Like this?'

The hum of the zoom through near darkness.

‘Yes.'

‘This is bad. What you're making me do.' Her fingers sliding down. On her thighs. Touching. Holding her glistening self open. ‘See? This is what it looks like.' Then rubbing. Working in. The wet click of two
fingers. A deeper voice in her head. No longer a whisper. She stops. ‘You know I'm fucking knocked up, Glenn.'

The close-up.

‘Do it.'

Fingers stuck in there. Numb. Sheening at the knuckles.

‘Remember?'

‘Yes.'

A moan with her fingers stroking in and out. ‘Yeah…you remember, don't you? When I was knocked up before.' An intake of breath. A shudder. ‘Knocked up, like a dirty mommy whore. Remember, Glenny? Look. Look at it. You wanna feel how wet it is?' Her legs wider apart. ‘See?' Another gasp. Fingers stabbing. ‘Come here.' Her body jerking once in response. ‘You wanna put it in me, Glenny. Huh?' Muscles holding taut. ‘Awww, you wanna suck sissy's big titties?' In darkness, as though fitfully in sleep. ‘Ohhhhhhh, fuuuuuck, yeahhhh, seeee, meeee.' Adrift. Afloat. Higher and deeper. Brighter and darker. Blacker and blacker.

‘What you were, are.'

What she is, was.

What is she ever, but that?

Body easing back. Legs closing. Her face relaxing, turning away. Having learned never allowed. A look of not knowing where she might be. Awoken from unconsciousness. Staring at what is not now.

Who he is.

Glenn clicks off the camera. Lowers it. His face out in the open. Nervous now. ‘After,' he says, turning. Needing to be rid of it. Stashing it back in the bag. Zipping it up fast. ‘You can watch how you were before.'

 

Blackstrap Hawco stands at the foot of his father's bed. The old man's jaw white with stubble. His eyes on the ceiling as if aware that Blackstrap has been up on the roof. Patching the shingles. A leak that had been dripping on Jacob's forehead. Not knowing what it might be. His eyes fixed on the sounds of hammering. Still echoing in his head. A gust of wind rattles a loose pane in the window. Blackstrap turns that way. Unknowingly places his tar-stained hands on the cream-coloured
wooden footboard. He stares through the window. Clouds sweeping along up high. Travelling that way since this morning. The wind only now easing down to settle closer to land.

The old man makes a brutally distraught sound. But there is no fitting expression on his face. Only his jaw nudging upward, sucking without lip movement.

The wind rattles the pane again. A moment later, the old man blinks. Makes the tormented noise a second time. Half growl, half hiss. His face the same as ever.

Blackstrap Hawco moves to the side of the bed. Stares down at his father's dull grey eyes. No longer pale and cool blue like his own. Blackstrap waits, then says:

‘Wha's the matter, Fadder?'

Nothing.

He wonders where Isaac Tuttle was taken by the mountie. What was done to Isaac. Constable Pope had already been by. Asking him to repair Tuttle's house for the damage done with the backhoe. He'd have no part of that. Isaac Tuttle in the Waterford from what Blackstrap has heard. He'll find him there. Enough of Isaac Tuttle. Hearing for years how Isaac Tuttle owned the Hawcos' land. How Isaac Tuttle lusted after Blackstrap's mother. How Isaac Tuttle was a saintly man. Handing over a parcel of land. And the only reason they took it was because it was larger than the piece they were intended to live on. The one offered by the government. Joining Canada on the eve of April Fool's Day. If that wasn't joke enough. Smallwood having a grand laugh in Hell. And then a decade and a half later – relocation. They had been their own country once. Their own people. And now, according to his father, the country overrun by towelheads and chinks.

His father's favourite rant: ‘Not like now, a province full 'a Newfoundlanders made to be lazy children by da fed'rul gover'ment. Da U.I. cheques 'n da Moratorium money for keeping away frum da fishing. Bunch 'a fuh'k'n cowards vote'n “Yes” in da referendum. Da on'y province besides dat Charlottetown one it were named affer, 'cause dey're scared shitless 'a losing gover'ment money. Bawl'n about how we're robbed blind by da fed'r'l gover'ment, den get'n nice 'n comfy suck'n on Canada's tit. Canada ripped da spines right outta us. All words
now, all mout', not the ghost of a backbone left in most men. 1949. God-forsaken year.'

Now, the vacant expression on his father's face. Another relocation of sorts.

A rock in Blackstrap's gut that turns heavier when he remembers. The way his father changed from the time they left Bareneed. Not so much to glimpse as a boy. But now, older, looking back, he can see.

Blackstrap notices the locket on a silver chain around his father's neck. The catch down around front. Reaching, he undoes the clasp. Sliding a hand behind the old man's neck, he carefully lifts his head. So as not to make his father realize. He pulls the chain free. Opens the locket to see the photograph of the girl and boy. They had died. In mute wonder, he stares. Lips pressed tightly together. Then he snaps it shut. Fastens it around his own neck.

‘'Lo?' a voice from down the hallway. A woman's voice. Blackstrap tucks the locket away inside his shirt. Shifts only an inch or two to acknowledge Mrs. Shears. The old woman coming since Karen disappeared. No doubt having run off to St. John's. To stay with her brother. Like she did when things got too much for her. Too much what? he wondered.