Blackstrap Hawco (75 page)

‘ “I will die for the hope of Heaven,” Mommy whispers. Eyes shut in the dim hospital room. Her hands holding Blackstrap's hand. Careful of the IV. She prays: “I will die for the hope of Heaven.” And she hears from her mouth the “I” and sees that it is her again. It is not about Blackstrap. But about Mommy. The loss she might experience. And with this realization, her heart eases. Her body, once rigid, turns supple. Her lips part while she watches her son's face.

‘It is not about me.

‘It is about him.

‘In the morning. While Mommy sleeps in the chair by his bed. Blackstrap's eyes open. He has seen everything. Haven't you. Seen it all. He has heard everything. His mother. Mommy. His father. Daddy. His brother. Junior. His sister. Ruth. Hello, Blacky. The living and the dead. Which one is he now? Why do you survive us, always?'

 

Out of the coma, Blackstrap lies in bed. Wondering where he was. All that he recalls is water. The bed is afloat. He wants out of it. The hospital tilts. The window is masked at night with blue. Water thrusts there. Pellets. He shakes his head on the pillow. A dream of his mother and father. His brother and sister. Trapped in this room with him. And he tries to keep the tears from pouring. One or two come anyway. Before he can hold them back. He rubs his face in the pillow. His mouth open.

Billy Cullen. Johnny Cole. Fred Rumsey.

Susan.

He wants out of the hospital. Despite his weakness, he needs to walk. He needs to see Susan. He feels that she has been harmed by the storm. He feels seasick. His stomach unstable. He wants to be in Susan's apartment. The fireplace. The food. Everything rises and ebbs. He moves his hands to see they are bandaged. Wrapped in a clump of white. Two fists of blizzards.

He needs to get a message to Susan. But cannot speak. Again and again, he dreams that she is in danger. Because of him. He does not know her last name. Her telephone number.

His mother is there always. She smiles at him. She loves him. She is not like herself. Her face. He thinks that she is younger. That he is younger. Ageless. Only to be alive. That does it. Alive. Or is it the other?

 

There is a crowd outside the hospital. Mostly people with cameras and tape recorders. They want what he's holding too dearly. The flesh-erasing memories. He has nothing to say. He moves past on crutches. Knows of his fingers gone now. One thumb. Three fingers. A count of what remaining. He tries not to think. His feet. Toes sawed off. They told him which ones. Not the big ones to keep him upright. He half listened or pretended. He never looked when the bandages were changed. To see what monster.

He sees men. Their faces losing colour. Men and women in motion. One foot before the other, they drain. Energy back into the sea.

Frozen men being offloaded from a ship.

Twenty-two bodies recovered.

That's what he sees in the place of things. Not in front of him, but in him.

Dead men floating in water. Already covered in ice. Stuck together in chunks.

He had been saved but had saved no one.

The sea a savage to those families forever.

What beauty in the water on a calm day.

It is cold outside, the wind bitter. But it is May. Spring. The sun above him in the blue sky. It puts a rattle in him. Not winter. People in light jackets. Sneakers. Shoes. He cannot stop trembling. Clouds over the sun. The coldest breeze imaginable. He cannot hold himself steady. His knees are the worst. His left shoulder still aches fiercely. Cracked in so many places. He wonders if he might not be here. Not fully anywhere since coming back to himself. There is humour or kindness in nothing. The elements not felt as they are. He leans more on one crutch. Opens the passenger door for his mother. With the fingers that have been left for him. Remains. The remains of him. What remains? He has to look at his hand. The stubs partially bandaged. Waits until she gets in and shuts the door. The blunt stubs. How many fingers lost on that rig? How many fingers collected in a box? He keeps his back to the reporters.
The calls. Mister Hawco. Other people stood there too. Wondering about him. The sealer who clubbed that American woman. Yes, it is. Where to move now on his crutches. The shouts all garbled and meaning one thing. Waves of noise with voices almost there. He is guilty of something. Then he opens the back door. Leans in the back seat. Pulls his legs in. Shuts the door. Keeps looking ahead. His father at the steering wheel.

The pavement rolling in reverse.

Then straightening to drive. Down the black strip of asphalt. Steady and unmoving. That night in the flat-bottomed
Seaforth Highlander
. Rising and falling on impossible angles. Water gushing and frothing in from all sides. It would not go over. But the lights of the drill rig on that angle.

No one else rescued. The
Seaforth Highlander
forced to head for safety. Where would that be? Land. A chunk of something rooted. The land he rolls over now.

Safety here.

Tires gripping the pavement. Smooth and forward. Traction.

The water beneath the earth. Rising and falling in his heart. His head aswim. Something deep in the earth always moving. The way he thinks has changed. Has it? He is frightened of everything. A sound from a passing child. Rushing in through the window.

 

The door is knocked upon. The telephone rings. The silver stem on the ringer turned down. A dull clatter. Blackstrap cannot spend a single peaceful moment in his house. There is no end to people wanting the truth about what happened. The only two eyes that saw. He will not give it to them. Because they do not want the truth, they want the story. He will not give over the story of those men who died. They did not die, they perished. He will not explain how those men perished. He will not give it to men and women paid to know the pain of others. To open it raw to everyone else. The wounds. The tears. The disease. The death. The loved ones. They are filled with maggots. That's how he sees them. Rotten, cunt-ugly fuckers. He sees himself at a table, staring. And he is sitting there, watching only his hands. Uncle Ace. His fingers missing. People entering the room. Then leaving. Shadows speaking in a
language once understood. The stories he heard of his great-uncle sitting in his chair at the kitchen table in Bareneed. Not a word from his mouth. All those years alive. Not one word from Blackstrap's mouth. Only his eyes that would watch. Like they were narrowing to see. Straining to make something out in the lamplight. His father told him the way it was. Then Ace's eyes catching sight of the small growing bigger. Seeing too much. Widening. Not a single word. But now. Now, Uncle Ace finally says: ‘N'ver ag'in.' Eyes wider. Seeing through the boiling black water that pounds down over him and stretches infinitely in all directions.

‘N'ver ag'in on da sea.' His words Blackstrap's. But only for now.

Dead right, for now.

Water beneath his boots in the earth.

 

The book publishers call. The movie people. Wanting to buy the rights to his story. Jacob tells them that Blackstrap is dead. Whether to protect him or believed as fact. Blackstrap has no true idea.

He should be happy to have lived, but he wishes that he were dead. All of those men, heroic in their demise. The trembling voices of the families. The mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, calling to ask him. Tell me anything. Did you see him? Did you see my boy, my husband, my brother…? What did he say? Was it peaceful? Do you know where we can find him?

The lawyers at his door. He will not take a penny. Millions, they tell him. Someone must pay you for your pain.

They leave notes.

They send letters.

Psychological damage.

Pain and suffering.

Loss of limbs.

Not limbs.

Fingers and toes.

Post-traumatic stress disorder.

Millions. Never the need to work again. To worry about money. Never a worry in the world.

Imagine someone playing your part.

A famous actor.

Who would you want to play you?

For the sake of the dead men, tell us.

He is terrified every moment.

Waking or sleeping.

Dusk through the window.

On the verge of tears.

A puddle.

A brook.

A pond.

A glass of it in his hand.

 

‘I'm go'n away,' Blackstrap says, his voice in the darkness of his mother's bedroom.

‘Why?' his mother says. Her hand coming up to touch him at that distance. There is movement in the bed as she rises to sit. Coming awake or trying. Hands held against her face, she rubs at her eyes.

He does not know why he must leave. A step nearer. A limp getting better by the week. No nearer than that. His only thumb running over the smooth tender nubs of his fingers.

‘Why?' her voice chokes. ‘Don't you have any idea?'

He shrugs. A feeling only. The need to be gone from anything known.

‘Is it because you survived?'

He does not understand and does. What she is getting at. There is no sorting it out exactly. It only hurts his head to think anywhere near it.

‘When you survive…they come after you. They want to know how it's done. Because they can't…Because they're not…'

Blackstrap stands near the bed and watches his mother. ‘Not what?'

‘Not surviving.'

Edging a little nearer to her, now that he is going.

‘Can you tell them why?' She smiles kindly, knowing the answer already.

He shakes his head. ‘No, Mom.'

‘How're your feet?'

‘Fine.'

Her eyes half seen in the dimness, shifting to his hands. ‘When are you going?'

‘Now.'

‘In the night?' Her eyes skimming higher, to his eyes. ‘You're not running away, are you, Alphonsus?'

‘No.'

‘Under the cover of night.'

‘Flight at midnight.'

‘That's it, is it? Up into the dark sky? It's not wet up there.' Her gaze toward the windowpane.

‘Yeah…Maybe I'll stay up there.'

His mother's smile stretching strangely, slowly. But her eyes still on the window. Like he's out there somewhere. ‘That's my boy…Let's hope it doesn't rain.'

 

Three hours before his flight. He takes a taxi to his old apartment on Military Road. He remembers where his LTD was parked on the street. It's gone. Another car sits there in its place. He has been away for months. Maybe longer. It is difficult to remember how one thing came after the other, or before.

He takes out his key ring. The key for the outer door was silver. Square instead of tapered. He cannot find the shape of it. His hand tries the knob and discovers it unlocked. The key to his apartment was gold. He tries one of the gold keys. Then another, but none of them fit. The lock must have been changed. With his ear to the door, he hears the murmur of a television show. Then theme music leading to something. He creeps up the stairs and knocks lightly on Susan's door. There is no answer. It sounds hollow in there. The way his apartment used to when he walked across the floor. He knocks three more times. Then leans against the hallway wall, his back sliding down, until he is sitting. Carpet beneath him, worn from continuous tread. He looks at his hands. The new shape of them. The dumb pain still there. The corridor dark. He listens for a noise behind Susan's door. There is only silence.

Standing, he waits a moment and tries the knob. Locked. He rattles the knob. More and more strongly. He pounds on the door.
He pounds until he thinks he hears a small voice buried beneath the noise.

And stops.

Listens. Holds his breath. Stares.

‘Hello,' a child's voice behind the door.

‘Susan there?' he asks, his tone desperate. His eyes look down because the voice behind the door is low to the ground.

‘No.'

‘Where is she?'

‘I don't know…You woke me up.' The words said through a yawn. ‘You were banging so fiercely.'

‘Does Susan live here?'

‘Yes.'

‘Where
is
she?'

‘She's
here
.'

‘Can you get her for me?'

‘I…can't.'

‘Why?'

‘Because she's just not, Blacky.'

Gooseflesh prickles Blackstrap's skin. ‘Get her for me.'

‘She's just not.'

‘Not what?' Blackstrap touches the door, his palm flat to it. The door is warm. There's a vibration in it that might be the sound of the television below. He chews on his bottom lip then backs away.

‘Because…what you touch, Blacky.'

Blackstrap hears himself breathing. Then the toot of a car horn he checks toward. The taxi beyond the walls. But only darkness in the upstairs hallway.

The voice smaller, more distant, with each word: ‘Because…what you touch.'

He steps away, toward the stairs, and unsteadily descends. He shoves through the door. Fleeing.

Outside, the air is warm. Is it spring? Is it summer?

He checks his keys for the big silver one to his car. Gone. He wonders if he took the right key ring from the house in Cutland Junction. He watches up at Susan's window. A light flashing there. Dot-dot-dash.
Dot-dot-dash. And the child, the woman, the girl, the lady standing there, holding the hand of a pale man staring east, toward water.

 

Junior sits beside him on the airplane, watching out the small window. Junior sits beside him through everything he has ever known or felt. Blackstrap cursed by the sight of bicycles. By the sight of books and cameras. By the sight of all things touched by Junior. Cursed by the sight of toys bashed together by Ruth. Plastic, solid colours. Red. Blue. Yellow. White. Bashed together. Toys. And that shriek with no sound from her buckled mouth. A child in the aisle across from him. Its big eyes staring. Knowing his thoughts by how its top lip pulls up.

‘It's about time,' says the child.

What?
Blackstrap wonders.

‘One of us got away.'