Once You Break a Knuckle (16 page)

They reached a toll booth where a man in a blue blazer wore circular glasses perched too far down his nose.
He peered crow-like at them, slid his window open and dangled one tattooed hand menacingly out the booth.

—Nope, he told them. —Springs are closed for tonight.

—We've got friends at the resort, Chris said.

—Don't think you do.

They retreated. Winch notched his seat forward. Chris hunched over the wheel like a rodent and Squints stayed silent in the backseat and Winch wondered if he planned to contribute anything to the entire trip.

—Could get some booze, Chris said. She pulled onto the shoulder and flicked the cabins on. —I might not get ID'd.

—No, Squints said. In the mirror Winch saw him stretch an arm along the seat. He nodded toward the box and his tongue passed along his teeth and his lip bulged with it. —We can get to the springs guerrilla style. Old guy won't see us. I know some guys doin a party there. Pretend like we're in Vietnam.

—How long? Winch said.

—Hour up, same down.

They left the Suburban in the lot of an A.G. Foods grocery, under a sodium street lamp that lit the silver vehicle like a pumpkin. Squints declared his right to lead. Winch waved him by. As they embarked, Chris told him she'd watched an episode of
Twilight Zone
where a wild-eyed hunter prowled through the forest only to find himself prey to a terrible beast. He tugged her hip against his. When Winch flicked his gramps's massive bush-lamp, Squints ducked as though under fire. —Keep it off, he hissed.

—Awright Sergeant Squints Sir, Winch said, and saluted.

Near the toll the old guy peered through his lenses as if he'd spotted movement. Squints swathed through the brush. Winch held his arm in front of his eyes to catch whipping branches. They appeared on a mountainous road and the resort's lights brimmed in the night sky like fog. Squints passed rubbery water bottles around. Chris circulated a joint. Whenever headlights appeared they barrelled for the ditch, and Winch gashed his elbow in one of the dives.

Chris prodded the skin. —You have thin blood.

—And a thick skull, Winch said.

—Best place to get hit with a beer bottle, Squints said, and rapped his forehead.

Winch's dad had a scar curled over the crest of his forehead, same spot Squints was tapping with his knuckles. After the house burned his mum disappeared, except for one night when she snuck in the rear door of his gramps's place. Winch's dad shovelled stew from his bowl and watched an episode of
Dr. Who
, and though his dad saw her coming, no man alive could have dodged that bottle. Winch looked on from the bedroom where he tucked into the corner with a stray cat named Kalamazoo. Biggest scrap his parents ever dug into, first time he saw real desperation, the way a man gets wild-eyed when he's on the defensive. His dad spent a day laid out with a concussion and two bust knuckles. If he flattened his hand on a hard surface and lifted his middle finger, the bone would rear like a serpent.

They crossed a bridge. Winch grabbed for the fibrous rail and it slickened his palm. A river howled beneath him and the trees on the water's edge shuddered like a drying dog. He hadn't trekked through wilderness for a while. The air hung with dew and the scent of snowfall and the bridge swayed and the moon scythed amid clouds. Halfway across he latched on to the rope rails and braced his legs on the net siding and hoped for a gust to whip the bridge like a sling.

Squints led them down an embankment and Winch went first so he could catch Chris if she took a dive. The air smelled like gunpowder. Chris's shoulder brushed his and he swung his hip into her playfully. Squints soldiered forward with renewed purpose, a bounce to his step like a man planning to get laid. When the springs finally swept into view Squints chortled and pumped his fist in the air. A waterfall splashed to a rocky pool and above it smaller, hotter pools bubbled and steam lilted off them and guys Winch's age and older filled those pools, beer cans clutched talon-like, and empty bottles and cardboard littered around the springs like leaves. He recognized some as jocks, others as the welfare hicks who crowded outside Miss Hawk's shop to catcall her when she walked between classes.

—Squinnnssseeeeyyy, someone bellowed.

In the moonlight a trio of men rose from the hot springs and shambled across the shale that lined the pools. Squints stepped toward them and they clasped hands and Winch realized he did not know Squints's past, what he
used to do, which groups he used to hang with. Chris was silent as all hell and she kept one shoulder behind him, her chin to her chest.

—Who's this? the centre man said, and lifted his bottle to indicate Winch. He was the oldest of the three of them, pushing twenty-five, and facial hair horseshoed along his jaw. All three were sleek with the hot water. Steam haloed them. The middle man had a tattoo inked along his neck and down his collar, looping his abs at the ribs, like a belt.

—I'm Winch.

The three men laughed. —Hoi Winch, I'm Lever, one of them said, and they laughed again.

—An' I'm Gearbox.

—An' I'm Stick Shift.

—Good one, Butter, Squints said.

The man in the middle – Butter – rubbed his nose and sniffled loudly. —Who's the cute one in the back? Least ya brought
some
tail.

—She's a friend of mine, Squints said.

—Open season, Butter said.

A gruff voice in the background yelled and Butter twisted halfway, and his exposed cock swung and Winch saw the three men had been skinny-dipping. They all were. —Wanna come fer a swim, baby?

Butter reached across as if for Chris's wrist and Winch knocked his hand away. —Back off, he said.

Butter fingered his beard. Squints sidled away and the two men on either side backed up. Chatter halted in the
springs. These were guys who never showed their faces at school but would swarm like maggots at the first whiff of a fight. Winch listened to the waterfall splatter in the largest pool. His dad had told him to pick his fights, because there was no reason to take a shitkicking. A man can tell when things are out of control. In desperation there are no Queensberry Rules.

—Huh, Butter said, as if considering.

Guys climbed from the water and beads trickled down their legs to the pools. The air smelled like a bedroom with no open windows, like ten-ounce boxing gloves with cracked canvas palms. Winch pulled his gramps's bush-lamp to his chest, as if to use it as a shield. Butter fingered his beard again and as he did he eyed Chris. In a few moments Winch would have a dozen other guys atop him.

—Huh, Butter said again.

—Wer leavin, Winch said.

Butter's tongue frogged along his teeth.

—I said wer leavin.

—Yeah? Butter said.

—Didn't know you guys were here is all.

—Think yer takin yer lady friend with ya?

—Thought it was empty up here.

—An' what if I'm gonna give ya a shitkicken fer comin up here? Butter said.

Winch's heart thrummed in his chest and he tightened his grip on the bush-lamp, considered its weight. He linked his fingers around the stiff handle and thumbed
the rigid shank, the rubbery slats that provided him grip. It had metal edges, thin barn doors used to funnel light. Butter hunched like a zombie and stroked his fingers along his beard, tongue pinched in the gap between his teeth and his lip.

—I'm just kinda hopin ya don't, Winch said.

—Hopin I don't.

—Yup.

—Hopin I don't take yer lady friend from ya too I bet.

—Yup.

Butter laughed, the other guys with him.

—Yer a funny kid, Stick Shift. A funny kid. Where'd Squints find ya, anyway. Funny kid. Butter nodded toward him. —He's a funny kid eh? The others laughed again and something like a bloodclot balled in Winch's throat, at the divot where his breastbone became his neck, a hard, lumpy knot he had to swallow down.

—Get the hell outta here, Butter said, swiping his hand under his nose. —Get out before I break all yer hopes an' dreams. Y'owe me big, little man, y'owe me big.

He and Chris left Squints with the guys and retraced their steps. Chris fished the remnants of her joint from an inside pocket and offered it, but Winch shook his head and she bagged it. They followed the road. It took longer, and when they passed the toll booth the old guy slammed his palm against the glass. Chris's Suburban still glowed like a pumpkin. They had barely said a word all the way down, the occasional warning at an exposed root or an overhanging branch. Winch slumped in his seat and
Chris waited for two full breaths before she started the ignition.

—Thanks, she squeaked, and he patted her on the thigh, an inch or two higher than they'd established as appropriate.

At home, Chris let him out and rolled down the driveway in neutral, headlamps off. Winch pushed through the front door and kicked his boots into the closet. The living room was dark, but light spilled from the kitchen. He replaced the bush-lamp in the boot closet beside a long-unused fishing pole and a toolbox his dad used to haul down from the shelf before work. His gramps was asleep at the table, forehead to placemat, the .308 disassembled in front of him. Winch capped a tin of polish and a tube of oil and tugged a gummy cloth from his gramps's fingers. He'd never watched the old guy clean the weapon to that extent, never seen the components separated. He recognized the bolt, the tension coil for the trigger, the chamber, and the slick cylinder that locked into the barrel. In his gramps's open palm: a set of dog tags and a .50-calibre shell as long as Winch's thumb – relics whose origins Winch did not know. The firing assembly lay apart, the screws that fastened it scattered, pin disengaged from hinge. Winch fingered the sulphur-scorched hammer and it rattled in its joint, limp, lacking the force he'd known to spark gunpowder.

—Gramps? Winch said, way too loud, and couldn't bring himself to take the old man's pulse.

PAWL

Winch didn't go to school the next day, or the next, or the next. He sat on the couch with the blinds pulled and the Winchester scattered around him. Reassembly of the rifle was beyond him. His hands combed over those scraps of foreign steel. He prodded oiled joints, traced notches, and his palms smudged with the smell of loose change. In tech class Miss Hawk had taught him to troubleshoot mechanics. Work from isolation. Work from causation. Why won't the hammer rise, what's catching the swivel, if he left it to last, would the recoil block still guard against impact? He pulled his gramps's hunting rifle off the wall to deconstruct and analyze, but it was a lever-action, and he couldn't reverse-engineer it. Chris left him messages every hour on the hour. She came by on the second night and he ducked upstairs, to his gramps's room, and she only dared a few steps into the empty house. He wanted to call out to her, to be hugged and comforted by her, but nobody had ever taught him how to ask. It struck him that he was entirely alone.

On the third evening Winch watched headlights flash through a slat in the curtain. Tires churned gravel and a car door whooshed shut and a man cursed. Winch went to the curtains and the light slashed across his face as he peeked through. His dad steadied himself with a hand on the hood of his Sweptline. He reached through the open window and killed the ignition and the lights died.

—Winchy, et's yer dad, he slurred. The front door was locked – to prevent Chris entry – and his dad rattled the
rickety thing in its frame. —I dunno where I put muh fucken keys.

—Why ya comin back now? Winch hollered through the wood.

—Muh dad's dead ya dumb cunt. Came back to pay muh dues.

—Ya never called me Winchy before.

—Aww come on.

Winch opened the door and his dad came two steps through and stopped dead as rock. He sucked on breath, and those maimed hands tugged on the hem of his shirt, like a boy. They stayed like that, with the door flown wide. Then his dad eased it shut and pressed his forehead to the wood. —Goddammit, he said.

—I can't rebuild the rifle, Winch said.

—What?

—Gramps's rifle, Winch said. —I can't.

His dad pushed off from the wall. He smelled like a locker room. Winch saw ruddy stains on the sleeves of his dad's T-shirt, frays at the edges, smudges on the collar like oil smears, or unwashed fingers.

Winch went to the kitchen table where he had the rifle parts piled and ordered. His dad followed, the sound of his boots clunking on the lino like a loose timing belt. The two of them sagged into wooden chairs. Winch surveyed the disassembled Winchester, sought similarities among the pieces, hooks and eyes, threads and mouths and notches that could click together like molars. It should've been easy for him. It's what he
did
– it's all he knew how
to
do
. His dad pinched a chunk of metal between thumb and index, gave it a twirl. It was jagged, big as a Christmas orange. —Ken ya make some coffee?

Winch put on a pot. His dad massaged his temples, one thumb on each side.

—I done muh best, Winchy.

—Why ya callin me Winchy?

His dad squeezed and unsqueezed that metal part – a component of the stock, if Winch hazarded a guess. —I always call ya Winchy, ya dumb cunt.

—Ya don't never.

—The hell cares about that now, his dad said, and flicked the part aside. —Why ya got this mess here?

—Told ya, Winch said. —I can't rebuild it.

—Can't rebuild what?

—I just told ya. Gramps's rifle. I just said.

—S'just a gun, Winch.

—It's
Gramps's
.

—Awright, his dad said. The coffee blurbled, and Winch lasted a few good seconds of his dad's distant stare before he got up and poured two cups. His dad didn't drink his – only held it in his palm and gritted his teeth.

—Yer a good kid Winch, his dad said. —An' I'm a shitty dad.